New Statesman | Why bodily functions are a feminist issue

New Statesman | Why bodily functions are a feminist issue



New Statesman | Why bodily functions are a feminist issue http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2014/12/why-bodily-functions-are-feminist-issue



"To exhibit any kind of bodily function in public – whether it’s pissing against a wall, spitting in the street, picking and flicking earwax while one waits in a queue – is still seen as a male thing to do. We might consider such things disgusting, but men can assume the right to be disgusting in a way that women can’t. It’s understood that male bodies are a part of what men are. Female bodies don’t have the same status. Even though, on a basic level, we know that they work in much the same way male bodies do – we shit, we piss, we perspire, we snore – we don’t really want to know this. A female body remains a thing to use, to own and to look at. It’s not something which does things suggestive of some real, human messiness inside."