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Questions for Feb 19th
- Compare the philosophical accounts of the differences between male
and female in Aristotle (339) and Galen (351). What is the womb like?
Do we have similar theories about male and female gender based on biology
or physiology? Do you think our notions about science reflect cultural
ideals about gender. How much have our bodies been conditioned by culture?
What might amuse people 2000 years from now about our ideas? How has
physiology/biology been used to reinforce social constructions of gender
and race throughout history.
- How are women patients represented in the medical writings? (Read
carefully 232, 343, 348, & 352.) Do you think the medical texts
reflect "Women's perception of themselves" as Leslie Dean
Jones suggests?
- Apparently female orgasm was essential to conception. What does this
tell us about attitudes toward women's sexuality?
- Does the reluctance on the part of male doctors to touch women's bodies
reveal a male fear of the sick female body or does it indicate a respect
for women's knowledge of their own bodies? How does King find a way
out of this sort of optimist/pessimist dichotomy?
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