Chelsea Swan

The once and future sex discusses how medieval thinkers, almost always male, subscribed to a blend of classical Greek and Roman philosophy and Christian theology for their concepts of the sexes. For the height of female attractiveness, they chose the mythical Helen of Troy, whose imagined pear shape, small breasts, and golden hair served as beauty’s epitome. Casting Eve’s shadow over medieval women, they derided them as oversexed sinners, inherently lustful, insatiable, and weak. And, unless a nun, a woman was to be the embodiment of perfect motherhood. The book questions why, if our ideas of women have changed drastically over time, we cannot reimagine them now to create a more equitable future. Although entertaining it did not go deep enough. It does not go further than stating there were contradictions in expectations and that women were under pressures and placed under beliefs that were unrealistic and unkind. Pointing this out does not help us better understand why the narrative is the same now just in a different font. It does not offer any new way of getting us out. It just reminds us of our cage and even more depressing it lets us know we have often almost escaped but that society always sets back to the same standards. We are the controllable pawns that society can claim anything about. In my mind the only way out is for women to live as if the world were already different, already equal. What would that look like, feel like, how whole you act, think, speak, dress, now do that. They can’t stop us all. To live in truth without expectation or punishment. That way the world will have to adjust to us, not us try to convince the world that we deserve anything more than what we currently have. If you want it to be another way then it is another way and that is how you will act.