Is it really JUST the woman's fault?

When I was reading Reis’ Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex, something kept coming up and biting at me to think about it more. It was one of the first things we talked about in class, and is in the first couple of pages in the book. The question that kept (and keeps) gnawing at me is: Why is it only the woman’s fault when it comes to views of a monstrous birth during the colonial era? Of course, the obvious answer is within the pages of the book, but I feel like there is more to be “dug up” with this issue. And then I started to ask myself if it could possibly be related in any sort of way to the present time?

A lot of the evidence that Reis uses regarding this topic is pulled from Aristotle’s Master-Piece. I had never heard of such a book written by Aristotle, so I decided to look it up and this is what I found: Master-Piece is a sexual manual and midwifery book that was very popular in England and the United States up until the 19^th century. And unbeknownst to a lot of people, the book wasn’t even written by Aristotle, someone just decided to use his name to give it credibility (of course, this wasn’t found out until years down the road). The book talks about everything under the sun that has to do with sex and sexuality, all based under a Christian doctrine. At the time, this was one of the top medical resources doctors and midwives used, so it was published and used widely. Tying this back to Reis, there is an entire chapter on what women should and should not do during pregnancy. 

Master-Piece says that one of the main things that cause “monstrous” births is a woman’s unruly imagination during her pregnancy. Any “frighted or conceived wonders, strange longings” (Reis, 5) could cause these types of births. Even looking at animals or thinking about interracial relations could cause this and was considered a HUGE no-no. But what about the guys in this situation? Of course, as Reis points out, a man and woman having sex while she is menstruating can also cause these “awful” things to happen. However, men cannot help their sexual urges, so it is a woman’s job to say no to her husband when he wants to do the duty. But, isn’t one of the main gender roles of this time the obedient wife? I thought women weren’t really allowed to say “no” back then, especially regarding sex with their husbands. 

All of this makes me think about why exactly these “rules” were put into place. In all honesty, how Reis describes what pregnant women weren’t allowed to do basically implies that pregnant women should just stay inside and not move. Not think. Interesting. But that’s a whole different can of worms. What wasn’t addressed at all was what if a husband did those things before he conceived with his wife? What would happen if a man had an unruly imagination? Or thought of interracial relationships? Or saw animals that he wasn’t supposed to see? Why isn’t the man responsible for the “monstrous” birth…it does take two to tango. I really think a lot of it has to do with the power struggle in the binary system we have created. I think that if a man had any fault in creating a “monstrous” birth, the whole foundation would be shaken. Why? I’m really not entirely sure about that yet. Maybe a man having an impact in the outcome of how a baby is born makes him more feminine? I’m not really sure. 

This brings me to something that I learned about last year in my behavioral pharmacology class with Dr. Clark in the Psych department. Everyone knows about the different teratogens (substances that the mother is exposed to that harm the fetus) that can cause birth problems, deformities, and issues in brain development. Drinking alcohol, taking Tylenol, drinking too much caffeine, smoking, using drugs are all teratogens that a MOTHER is exposed to, some by choice, others not by choice. Only recently has the effects of these on the sperm come into study. Bielawski, Zaher, Svinarich, and Abel (2002) found that paternal alcohol exposure in rats has been shown to affect the growth and development of the offspring, even though the mother has not be exposed. Super interesting. While the findings are still too small to actually mean something that is earth shattering, researchers are still finding something. So maybe the guys do have something to do with it? But why are we just trying to figure this out now? 

There are still a lot of questions that I have surrounding this topic, and I don’t think that they will be answered within the next couple of years. I think that there is a lot of underlying issues when it comes to this issue of putting all the blame on the mother for development issues that are started in the womb. Tackling these issues in today’s world will need a ton of evidence to back up what they find. But who knows, maybe those findings will shake the binary just a tad bit to get a conversation going.

Bielawski, D.M., Zaher, F.M., Svinarich, D.M., & Abel, E.L. (2002). Paternal alcohol exposure affects sperm cytosine methyltransferase messenger RNA levels. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 26(3), 347-351.

Reis, E. (2009). Hermaphrodites, monstrous births, and same-sex intimacy. In E. Reis (Eds.),                     Bodies in doubt: an American history of intersex (pp. 1-21). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press