Is your body your own? Our society constantly is depicting what is right, what is wrong in accordance to the bodies of men, women, adults, and children. Whether the body is glorified or shunned, each and every body is being scrutinized every day. We change our bodies to fit the norms that our society places on us. And we manipulate our selves and surroundings to fit in. But what is a body? Websters dictionary defines it as the entire physical structure of an animal or human (Dictionary.com). But what makes us more than simply flesh and bone is our way to think, our way to feel. These make us human But what happens when our body is no longer our own?
It can be argued that our body has never really been our own, and we are products of our surroundings. “The body can never be regarded merely as a site of quantifiable process that can be assessed objectively, but must be treated as invested with personal meaning, history, and value that are ultimately determinable only by the subject who lives ‘within’ it” (74) The body is extremely analyzed, and even more so when the body becomes not only a physical being, but a carrier of another in pregnancy.
Susan Bordo depicts the pregnant body in a way in which I had thought about before, but could never put a word to when she referred to it as an incubator. As soon as a woman becomes pregnant her life becomes second to the potential child in her womb. Her personality, successes, career, and life in general is put aside for the mass growing inside of her. She is seen as a holder, and a carrier for this unborn and undeveloped potential life. And she is seen evil if she doesn’t care for this fetus subjectively.
And when a woman is pregnant she is given different medical treatment, and not just in the sense that she gets different treatments because of the health of the fetus, but the way the doctor treats her personally changes. With the development of technology, and the ability to see features of the baby and apply subjective views to it rather than seeing it as just a fetus. And with this way to see the features that resemble developed people, doctors have the ability to use emotional pull with mothers in showing that it resembles a person, and humanize the fetus even at only a few weeks along.
Women can even be seen as unable to make decisions with her body, if the decisions could potentially harm the baby. If abortion is the ultimate decision, there are so many questions to make sure she is ready, and papers that she must sign, and hoops she have to jump through to get what she wants. But is there a single piece of paper that a woman has to sign when she decides she wants to have a baby?
I think you're completely right. In fact, it was an issue that I explored in my own blog. The fetus becomes paramount to anything in a woman's life, and it can be argued that a woman's existence is to care for and nurture a baby. It's a little sad... but the biological depiction of who we are and how we work has made it like this. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteIt can be argued that it was something that was spelled for us since birth.
Especially as it relates to pregnancy, women are often subject to the structures that surround them, including medical and social structures. In that sense, as much responsibility and ownership that women tend to have over their own pregnancies, the structures that surround them typically have a much greater role in the actual process of their pregnancies than the women themselves.
ReplyDeleteWhich makes you wonder, are we, as a society, unfairly placing our own political views and societal expectations on pregnant women because we feel that we can more adequately determine right from wrong? Do we neglect to adequately take into account the feelings of those that are pregnant when it comes to such issues as divorce?
Well, in my opinion if it's our body then we need to take care and wear what we want and also what's best for us. Mens mesh underwear gives full coverage and comfort with sexy statement of style. Gooddevil offering mens mesh underwear at affordable prices.
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