I want to like Nerve, I really do. They often publish some really great articles and some really fun and funny columns, and hell, Jessica gets blogging ideas from them constantly. And they would be great if it weren’t for how they’ve bought into the exasperating myth that there’s something hip and risque about a little casual sexism. The affectation of poking P.C. platitudes isn’t hip or daring–it’s lazy and makes puts you in such daring, with-it company as Jonah Goldberg.
Of course, that may not be the impetus behind this weirdly sexist interview they ran with James McManus, there’s a whiff of that sort of thing about. Mostly what’s irritating is the interview purports to be a daring look into the sexual aspects of getting medical treatment but instead of being intriguing, McManus just parrots the notion that medical treatment is emasculating because the bodies that are meant to be violated by being surveyed, poked and prodded are female, without examining the wherefores that make that assertion interesting.
Instead you get quotes like this:
Do you think routine health care is more awkward and more psychologically fraught for men than it is for women?
Yes. Just look at how the culture clothes us. When you go out to a fancy event, men are covered up from Adam’s apple to toe, and women have these very revealing party dresses on. I think the male power structure demands that men be more fully clothed than women, so when we have to take our clothes off and interact bodily with someone else in a clinical setting, it is more embarrassing for men than it is for women.
And:
It seems we’re all expected to be more comfortable with the medicalization of sex than we’re culturally ready to be. Things like erectile dysfunction ads, penile implants — for men, is this empowering or just emasculating?
I don’t think it’s empowering. It feels slightly emasculating. I also just think it’s funny. As a writing teacher, I’m always getting questions from students like, “Can I write about this if it’s going to embarrass my stepbrother or my mother or whoever?” And I say, yeah, you have to go there. You’re sort of signing up for that embarrassment when you write. When they’re measuring your blubber content, you don’t want to report that to the world. You don’t even want to have the nurse standing there while she’s doing it.
Cry me a river, dude. You’ll have to read the whole article to get the full feel of how irritating McManus’s self-importantance, especially regarding his belief that his manhood should put him above bodily indignities like examination or even contraceptive responsibility, or the way he seems to forget women have sexual desires, too. But how is this 2006 and it’s still considered intriguing for a man to pat himself on the back for taking on a modicum of the medical debasement that is a normal, everyday part of women’s lives?
45 Responses to “They treated me like a woman! I want a cookie!”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Medical debasement? C’mon folks it’s a just physical examination.
Man, this is exactly what I needed an hour and a half before I head to the gynecologist. Yeah, no embarassment at all when women go to the doctor.
It is emasculating, because real, manly men don’t need anybody for anything. We can work thrugh pain! We can kick death’s ass! Yeah!
I’m gonna go out and destroy something now! Possibly my lack of a criminal record!
Medicine is only dehumanizing if you believe the human body is somehow special or magical, rather than a biomechanical machine that evolved over time and has some serious “design” flaws. Like any machine, the only way for a doctor, mechanic, or whatnot to know what’s going on with it is to look at it–and sometimes that means a prostate exam, which isn’t fun for anyone involved, but is occasionally necessary if you don’t want to die of cancer.
Of course, if you view your body as a marvel of design and, what’s more, yours and yours alone, then yes, it’s going to be uncomfortable. (Heck, if you don’t, it will be uncomfortable, but you grow up and deal.)
It is frickin’ hilarious how this guy can comment on the “male power structure” without recognizing that if women are less uncomfortable at the doctor, it’s because they’re always being somewhat debased all the damn time, and they’ve gotten used to it. So that’s hard on men. And this guy’s a writer! I’ve not read his stuff, but I’d suspect he’s a bad one–he’s obviously not very capable of putting himself in someone else’s shoes.
“so when we have to take our clothes off and interact bodily with someone else in a clinical setting, it is more embarrassing for men than it is for women.”
So what, McManus did not get comfortable with taking his clothes off in front of towel snapping jocks and others in high school? He has never been in a health club locker room undressing in front of strangers? Never had a physical for little league or something like that?
Wuss
Or is he post-forty and does not like the prostate exam.
He’s so right about men being covered up more than women. Some days you can hardly move for women with no shirt on.
Yes, because unlike any other system in human physiology, sex should remain a divine mystery. Unlike any other system in human physiology, sexual organs never fail or have problems, so there’s no reason to actually study it, much less treat problems which occur.
Ignorance == empowerment.
Impotence treatments == emasculation.
Wow.
They wouldn’t be quite so awful if they didn’t keep those damn gloves in the fridge.
They wouldn’t be quite so awful if they didn’t keep those damn gloves in the fridge.
I don’t know much about prostate exams, but I’d trade you if it meant I could give up having to endure stirrups and speculums…
Cry me a river, indeed. Because when he has to go to the ER, he’ll be taken seriously rather than given a Xanax and sent home.
Right on, Ginger. I laughed out loud at the part about how women wear less clothes than men. And who wants to bet that he’s opposed to public breast feeding rights?
And what’s with ignoring the fact that men can see their genetalia by, um, looking down whereas women have to rig a mirror and a pulley system? I don’t want to hear how it’s harder for men until somebody invents a teeny little penile speculum and a swab to follow.
I suspect we’d see a substantial decrease in prostate cancer if more men were willing to take a finger up the ass to save their lives. There’s a weird homophobic sexualization of the anus in our society that ties in neatly with the idea that sex is something real men do to other people rather than being something people do together.
Yes, because having that speculum ratchet you open wide enough to drive a bus through (or at least that’s how it feels) isn’t humiliating at all. Nor is it embarassing when they maneuver that light around just right…or having your OB/GYN telling you about how they like spelunking while doin’ the ol’ pap. Nothing humiliating about all that. Oh no.
Um, don’t get me wrong, I feel for anyone who has to go through medical examinations. They’re never fun, but if you’re an average, healthy male, you don’t get to the really embarassing stuff (except for “having them juggle my balls” as someone recently put it to me) until your 40s. Yeah. Um…try that yearly from teens to death. Wanna trade?
Cry me a river, indeed. Because when he has to go to the ER, he’ll be taken seriously rather than given a Xanax and sent home.
Ah, but Real Men don’t go to the ER. Did Hemmingway go to the ER? Does James Bond go to the ER? Does Arnold Schwarzenegger go to the ER? Does George Clooney go to the ER?
I met this with plenty of sarcasm in the comments for it on Alternet.
Lis Riba:
I hear they keep speculums in the frdge too.
I recently had to have a freaking ultrasound scan of my ovaries done. And it wasn’t done by the same method they use when you’re pregnant (ie rolling the thingie over the relevant part of your abdomen). Oh no, it was INTERNAL.
Of course, THAT was neither physically nor psychologically uncomfortable for me. Nor was the speculum-&-swab combo that followed. Not painful in the least.
MacManus can kiss my arse. Repeatedly.
Does George Clooney go to the ER?
Only when he’s leaking spinal fluid.
I recently had to have a freaking ultrasound scan of my ovaries done. And it wasn’t done by the same method they use when you’re pregnant (ie rolling the thingie over the relevant part of your abdomen). Oh no, it was INTERNAL.
They tried to do that when I was hospitalized overnight for possible appendicitis and (not incidentally) still a virgin.
I took one look and said, “That’s not a probe, that’s a boyfriend!” Assuming one’s boyfriend was John Holmes, that is.
The ultrasound never got done. Fortunately, the appendix thing resolved itself.
The more I think about this guy’s whining the more I begin to wonder if it is not homophobia.
Maybe he is one of these guys who won’t eat bananas cuz he is afraid he might look like he is enjoying just a bit too much…
Homophobes deserve to die of the colon cancer that will be allowed to grow unchecked because detection is too much like the other thing.
(I suppose. I’ve never experienced the other thing. The only thing I don’t like about colonoscopies is having to fast. And going to the doctor’s office in the first place.)
they’ve bought into the exasperating myth that there’s something hip and risque about a little casual sexism.
It’s the hip trend. I’ve got a friend whose dream is to work at American Apparel with Dov Charney, and who has insisted that every woman I’ve read who’s commented that they hate being told by strange men to smile is lying.
Yes, because having that speculum ratchet you open wide enough to drive a bus through (or at least that’s how it feels) isn’t humiliating at all. Nor is it embarassing when they maneuver that light around just right…or having your OB/GYN telling you about how they like spelunking while doin’ the ol’ pap. Nothing humiliating about all that. Oh no.
Don’t forget the clicking, scraping, pinching feeling.
The last time I went to the gynecologist, he used styptic down there, I shit you not. No warning, either, unless you count, “This might tingle a little bit.” James McManus can bite my ass.
Does George Clooney go to the ER?
Only when he’s leaking spinal fluid.
You know, even that mental image is a little sexy.
Well, McManus can bite me. I’m a woman and I find medical examinations awkward, embarrassing and dehumanizing.
I don’t think disliking having your body poked and prodded and investigated means you hate your body or think it should be unknowable and mysterious or something. It’s just that your body is *yours*, and it feels like a violation to have someone looking all over it, even if it is necessary for your health. But why this feeling would be limited to men is inexplicable. McManus, by saying that women are fine with medical exams which he perceives as a violations, seems to be saying that women like being violated.
I recently had to have a freaking ultrasound scan of my ovaries done. And it wasn’t done by the same method they use when you’re pregnant (ie rolling the thingie over the relevant part of your abdomen). Oh no, it was INTERNAL.
Gah! I had to have one done of my uterus, because my gynie, who seemed to find women’s bodies distasteful, thought it was tipped. So I had to get the internal probe — with a full bladder, no less. (You do it first with a full bladder, pee, and then go back for more probing). Whee!
I told the ultrasound tech that at least she could have bought me dinner first.
Having had a medical device shoved down the end of my dick I have nothing but sympathy for what women go through at the gynodoc. I at least had the benefit of ungodly hellacious anasthesia beforehand.
I’m calling bullshit on this. I have a rash on my chest. It’s been there for years, it’s probably related in some way to my other medical problems, and they have no idea what it is. For over a year, my dermatologist has been trying to convince me to come to the weekly meeting of the entire dermatology department, take my shirt and bra off, and let all the doctors, interns, residents, etc. take a good look at my chest. I promise you that this would be more embarassing for me, as a woman, than it would be for a man.
Here’s what struck me about that little interview. He felt anxious about his masculinity when he went to the doctor, so he focused on how being a man influenced his experience. But he didn’t think at all about how being straight, white, or upper-middle-class influenced his experience of going to the doctor. Those things, which matter a lot, are completely invisible to him.
Actually, now that I think about it, it’s probably true that men feel more awkward going to the doctor, but it has nothing to do with his bullshit reasons.
It’s because, even today, men are led to believe that they are in complete control of their bodies and their futures, and any reminder that their body could suddenly go “kablooey!” on them is incredibly threatening.
He can come up with all of the rationalizations he wants, but underlying that, he doesn’t like to be reminded that he is not, in fact, a completely independent being who controls his own destiny. Shit happens, even to straight, white, upper-middle-class males, and believing otherwise is only going to lead you into a world of shit when something does go wrong.
For over a year, my dermatologist has been trying to convince me to come to the weekly meeting of the entire dermatology department, take my shirt and bra off, and let all the doctors, interns, residents, etc. take a good look at my chest. I promise you that this would be more embarassing for me, as a woman, than it would be for a man.
PSA from a friend of mine: if you’re at all shy, never have a baby at a teaching hospital. Groups of interns walk in and lift up your hospital gown pretty much any time they feel like it. She got to the point where she felt had to say, “Um, you are a doctor, right?” because she started to worry that some perv would put on a white coat and take a look.
One of my favorite cartoons:
Guy (straight I guess) is sitting on the examining table covering up the “family jewls.”
The Doc is a woman and she says, “Lemme get this straight, you’d rather have a man touch your dick?”
She got to the point where she felt had to say, “Um, you are a doctor, right?� because she started to worry that some perv would put on a white coat and take a look.
Oh, God, poor woman.
When I was twelve, I developed a bizarre, perfectly benign kind of eczema. You get small, hard, scaly red spots, leopard-like all over your body. They’re painless. After a few weeks, they disappear, leaving no scars, and you never develop them again. W
hen my mom took me to the doctor to get my diagnosis, he asked if a bunch of medical students–like, eight or so–could come in and take a look. And of course my adult self would have said, “Of course not, asshole! Find some other seventh-grader to torment!” But I was way too shy and bewildered to complain, so all the twenty-somethings in labcoats trooped in to scrutinize my mostly-nude, chubby, early-blooming, pimply, scabrous body.
I’m still annoyed.
There are some great things about getting care at a teaching hospital, but fundamentally it is weird to be a teaching tool. I can’t tell you how much I despise being called “a fascinating case.” I know I’m weird, but I’m not a fucking “case”, people!
Which gets at the thing that I actually was going to say before I read your last post, Mnemosyne. I think that one of the really shitty things about being a patient, for anyone, is that it involves being objectified. There’s kind of no way around it. They’re the doctors, and it’s their job to examine, diagnose, and treat you. They’re acting, and you’re acted upon. I do think that being objectified is more unfamiiiar and therefore more anxiety-provoking for men, and that’s probably part of what this guy is reacting to. I also think it’s behind some of the weird penetration anxieties straight guys sometimes express. If you see the penetrator as the actor in sex, and the penetratee as the acted-upon, then being penetrated is a good metaphor for being objectified. (Of course, that’s a fucked up way to view sex, but that’s a matter for a different post.)
But, even though being objectified is kind of part of the process, there are some real differences in whether doctors treat you like a person or a specimen. And I think that’s where the race, class and gender stuff often comes into play. I mean, I can’t change my race or gender, but I’ve really noticed that doctors treat me differently depending on how they perceive my class status. When I come to appointments dressed in business clothes, they are more likely to speak to me, rather than over me, than when I come in jeans. They are much, much more likely to include me in conversations they have with each other once they know I’m a graduate student, even though I’m not studying anything science-related. They answer my questions more carefully and take my concerns more seriously when they perceive me as an elite person. I’ve started dressing up for doctors’ appointments, even if I’m not coming from work, just because it makes such a difference in terms of how they treat me.
McManus is a straight, white, male, middle-aged college professor. He went to the Mayo Clinic, which is a particularly elite institution, used to dealing with well-off people. He probably had absolutely the least objectifying experience of medicine that one can have in the U.S. If he found it difficult, anxiety-producing, and a little humiliating, he should try thinking about what it would be like if the doctors assumed he was too stupid to understand what they were doing. He should try to imagine what it would be like if, instead of discussing his results with him while wearing a shit-stained glove, the doctor discussed the results with some random intern or resident as if he wasn’t even in the room.
I mean, I can’t change my race or gender, but I’ve really noticed that doctors treat me differently depending on how they perceive my class status.
Yep. I’m being treated right now for a workers’ comp case (work-related injury) and the orthopedist was a complete ASS. Stuff like demanding to know why I was still on crutches before looking at the MRI and seeing that I had a bone bruise. He then did a 180 and said I should stay on them for a couple more weeks until that healed.
He basically walked in expecting me to be an unskilled laborer and was astonished to see that I was a college-educated woman.
Wish I could change doctors, but you’re kinda stuck when it’s workers’ comp.
I do love how he managed to get in a bit about the “young, hot babes” taking his clothes off. (You know, in every exam I’ve ever been to, they ask you to take your clothes off yourself…there are never nubile cabana boys to do it for me. )
I can respect not liking medical exams. But guess what? The toss up between a prostate exam and prostate cancer really ought to be an easy one…
The only really great thing about Nerve is I Did It For Science.
what a tool. at my yearly gyno exams my doctor does a rectal exam when she does the pap smear, and let me tell you, the pap is a lot worse. I have a “tipped” uterus too, and have had loads of fun times when docs in the emergency room pointed it out to me (like I hadn’t heard it 1,000,000 times) and solemnly told me I might find it more difficult to have children. I was like, how about you just diagnose this cripping abdominal pain and leave the conception advice for another fucking time? no, actually I’m sure I just smiled politely and nodded. damn.
My girlfriend participated in a woman’s thesis study that measured uterine thickness and various hormone levels. At the end of the experiment they took ultrasound pictures using the internal probe. Maybe this woman had access to more comfortable equipment, but it didn’t look that big.
Good parents teach their daughters to Submit We train the girls with unnecessary Pap smears (when a Q-tip vaginal swab with DNA analysis would be more informative), and rape the relacitrant ones, to loosen them up. Then impregnate them with the consequent public ripping of their innards. Now we have them softened up for whatever “exam” we deem necessary for the security of the state. I think you agree, alll your uteri are belong to us.
–The Patriarchy.
Oh, yes, I had some bleeding troubles and they wanted to get a good look at my overies with the ultrasound internal probe. *very* good technician had patients do the insertion bit themselves so it wasn’t quite as alarming. But while the wand was thin enough not to cause discomfort, it was what, 20 inches long? Obviously the majority of it is for the technician to be able to handle with ease, but if I had had to undergo the tests a few years earlier– I might have paniced!
Yeah, it was long, but not much bigger around than a thumb, maybe. Which could still be uncomfortable for people. Of course, my girlfriend volunteered for the study, which is pretty different than being presented with such a device at an early gyno exam. So I’m not really sure what my point was. Sorry. Carry on.
Seriously though, why does it seem like so many men who seriously dislike women go into a field of study that specifically treats women? One of my girlfriend’s first gynecologists was obsessed with the state of her hymen and tried to pressure her into letting him perform a “hymenectomy”. That’s some seriously fucked up shit. There should really be a psychological test as part of getting your medical degree.
QUOTE:
“Actually, now that I think about it, it’s probably true that men feel more awkward going to the doctor, but it has nothing to do with his bullshit reasons.
It’s because, even today, men are led to believe that they are in complete control of their bodies and their futures, and any reminder that their body could suddenly go “kablooey!â€Â? on them is incredibly threatening.”
Based on my observations of the chest-beating white heterosexual male “powerclass” while living here in NYC, Mnemosyne has nailed it, I think.
I could give up having to endure stirrups and speculums…”
Sounds exciting.
Well, it seems that I may be the only “lucky” guy to have to experience the stirrups for my exams. She said its easier for patient and doctor. I dunno. Stirrups are kept in the fridge too, but it beats facing the other way and not knowing when its coming at you! “Heels up, please!”
Right on, epistomology!
Women indeed suffer more humiliation at the hands of doctors, but this humiliation doesn’t serve any medical purpose, other than feeding the doctor’s ego and increase his sense of control over women. So what are we nagging about? If women want a PAP test for instance, there’s no need to have it done the barbaric way and never has been. Women simply have to refuse this and demand to be treated with respect, just like men do. Women should not allow to be intimidated with scary stories about their reproductive organs either. Our bodies aren’t more defective than men’s.
Hospital births and OB/GYN procedures are nothing more than LEGALISED RAPES!!! Being women being pregnant and giving birth is NOT A DANGEROUS DISEASE. IT IS A NATURAL FUNCTION WOMEN WERE DESIGNED TO DO SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME AND WORKS BEST WHEN THEY ARE LEFT ALONE.
GO UNASSISTED PREGNANCY/BIRTH