If Men Could Menstruate and Why I want a Wife

Firstly, I really enjoyed the titles of these two essays. I also enjoyed these essays far more than anything of the others that we had read. They took the same feminist message but worded it in a witty way, and turned it around on itself.

In If Men Could Menstruate, the change is society was well done. The idea of "cool slang" based off of menstruating, I found really funny. I thought what this piece did well was that it didn't complain about issues and try to prove using facts and figures, but rather took a social construct and reversed it. I thought it went about proving how ridiculous our society was without directly stating it. "The logic is in the eye of the logician" sums it up perfectly. We have, for thousands of years as men, come up with lies and flawed to prove that men are indeed "superior" and what Gloria Steinmen did so well was to turn it on its head. Women were thought unfit for political office because of their time of the month, but If Men Could Menstruate points out women would be thought unfit for political office because of their lack of a time of the month. I found it really clever as she came up for justifications for religious services, work, etc. because every time I could hear some misogynist preaching that, and each argument made sense. I found the pop culture references funny, and I really enjoyed the whole article.

Why I want a Wife is another story that I thought was strong. Firstly, I think it is interesting how the author, Judy Syfers, seems to be a traditional housewife. I suppose that perhaps all the things she says a wife does, is what she does. I think this adds a level of understanding and depth, and makes the piece more powerful. I think it was well written, because it takes traditional stereotypes, and turns them around. Also, by talking about wives as a term "a wife" rather than "a woman" it implies that "wives" are interchangeable and not human almost. I think she is making the point that a "wife" is not necessarily a woman, but I think it goes further to say that "wives" are not considered people, and therefore, women are not considered people. Also, she makes that argument that women want these things as well. When she says "My God, who wouldn't want a wife" she is implying that wives are universally desired, and that very few women are happy about their un-chosen role in the household.

Just a side note, just thought it should be mentioned: I also thought both were much better than blame it on feminism, yet it did bring up an interesting point. Dr. Jean Baker Miller points out, very interestingly, that "A backlash may be an indication that women really have had an effect", and that the "lack" of progress demonstrates progress.