TOW #25: The Female Body by Margaret Atwood (written, nonfiction text)

This week, I read Margaret Atwood's "The Female Body." In her article, she talks about how the female body can be viewed in many ways. The female body can be judged by physical appearance, the physical parts that identifies someone as a female. Another way is by the things women put on, "the basic female body comes with the following accessories" (3) and lists all the things that women may use to decorate herself and make herself more attractive. The third way is whether the woman is willing to change when someone tells her what you do not like about her. The author then mentions how the woman's body have different uses and that males sometimes use females to get things for themselves even when they are capable of getting things themselves. Then Atwood mentions how pleasure in female is not required but optional. “Pleasure in the female is not a requirement… We’re not talking about love, we’re talking about biology” (6). Atwood attempts to use humor now and then to lighten up the mood. For example, after she mentioned that pleasure is not a requirement for women, she talks about how “Snails do it differently. They’re hermaphrodites and work in three’s” (6). This attempt of humor could have been an analogy to show to males who take women for granted and exploit women that women are much valuable than snails. Finally she talks about the female and male brains and how they differ; females have a more laid back approach on things while males have an objective approach. The “Female Body” is mainly about how men keep women to do things and for nothing else. So when they lose the female they are lost because they don’t know what or how to do things themselves. Atwood had a condescending tone to those men who do not value women. I think her condescending tone worked but her views were very one-sided as she made her argument sound like that all men do not value women and exploit women’s intelligence and body. She made men sound like irresponsible and helpless beings who cannot do anything by themselves when women are not present. I think supporting that point of view was overly ambitious as she needs to respond to possible counterargument to make her points stronger.