Activity

If men could menstruate

Characters:

Gloria Marie Steinem

Theme: Reformulación de hipótesis. Segundo condicional.

Competencies

Competence in Linguistic Communication

Multilingual Competence

Personal, social and learning to learn competence

Competence in cultural awareness and expressions

Subjects and year by Educational System

Spain > English > 4th ESO > Communication

Enunciation

<img title="Women's Legacy logo" src="//inclusion.womenslegacyproject.eu/images/LogoWL.svg" /><hr />ACTIVITY 1 Read the text by Gloria Steinem and answer the questions.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; If Men Could Menstruate, by Gloria Steinem&nbsp;
 A white minority of the world has spent centuries making us thinking that a white skin makes people superior&mdash;even though the only thing it really does is making them more subject to ultraviolet rays and to wrinkles. Male human beings have built whole cultures around the idea that penis-envy is &ldquo;natural&rdquo; to women&mdash;though having such an unprotected organ might be said to make men vulnerable, and the power to give birth makes womb-envy at least as logical.&nbsp;
In short, the characteristics of the powerful, are thought to be better than the characteristics of the powerless&mdash;and logic has nothing to do with it.&nbsp; What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?&nbsp; The answer is clear&mdash;menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event. Men would brag about how long and how much.&nbsp; Boys would mark the onset of menses with religious ritual and stag parties.&nbsp; Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts.&nbsp;
Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. &nbsp; Military men, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation (&ldquo;menstruation&rdquo;) as proof that only men could serve in the Army (&ldquo;You have to give blood to take blood&rdquo;), occupy political office (&ldquo;Can women be aggressive without that cycle governed by the planet Mars?&rdquo;), be priests and ministers (&ldquo;How could a woman give her blood for our sins?&rdquo;) or rabbis (&ldquo;Without the monthly loss of impurities, women remain unclean&rdquo;).&nbsp; Male radicals, left-wing politicians, and mystics, however, would insist that women are equal, just different, and that any woman could enter their ranks if she were willing to self-inflict a major wound every month (&ldquo;You MUST give blood for the revolution&rdquo;). Street guys would brag (&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a three pad man&rdquo;) or answer praise from a buddy (&ldquo;Man, you lookin&rsquo; good!&rdquo;) by giving fives and saying, &ldquo;Yeah, man, I&rsquo;m on the rag!&rdquo; . TV shows would treat the subject at length. So would newspapers.
(SHARK SCARE THREATENS MENSTRUATING MEN. JUDGE CITES MONTHLY STRESS IN PARDONING RAPIST)
Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself&mdash;though probably only because they needed a good menstruating man.&nbsp; Of course, male intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguments. How could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics, or measurement, for instance, without that gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets&mdash;and thus for measuring anything at all? [...]&nbsp; And how would women be trained to react? [...]&nbsp; In fact, if men could menstruate, the power justifications could probably go on forever.&nbsp; If we let them.&nbsp;
Adaptation &ldquo;If men could menstruate&rdquo; by Gloria Steinem.&nbsp; Full article in &lt;<a title="If men could menstruate. Tandfondline" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23293691.2019.1619050">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23293691.2019.1619050</a>&gt; (&uacute;ltima visita 15/04/2022)&nbsp;
 Exercise 1
Connectors. Highlight five connectors from the text.&nbsp;
 Exercise 2
Vocabulary. Translate the words in bold.&nbsp;
 Exercise 3
What is the structure of the second conditional? Find two examples in the text.&nbsp;
 Exercise 4
Write one sentence answering the question. How would women act if they didn&rsquo;t have the period?&nbsp;
Exercise 5
Create a hypothetical situation similar to the previous one to ask your classmates.&nbsp;
What would you do if you________________________?&nbsp;
 Exercise 6
What does Gloria Steinem want to say in the text? Do you agree with the text? Justify your answer.&nbsp;
 Exercise 7
Who is Gloria Steinem? Do some research on the character.&nbsp; &nbsp; * Dysmenorrhea is characterized by severe and frequent menstrual cramps and pain during your period.
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Observations and context

- Una vez trabajado el artículo se puede aprovechar la ocasión para repasar la estructura y características de un artículo periodístico y que escriban uno ellos mismos con la misma temática o similar al de Gloria Steinem.
- Steinem es una de las mayores representantes del feminismo en Estados Unidos. Fundó el National Women’s Political Caucus en Julio de 1971 junto con Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug y Shirley Chisholm.
- Otras escritoras, periodistas y activistas de esta época son: Alice Walker, Helen Gurley Brown, Dorothy Pitman, Coretta Scott King, Ellen Willis y Shulamith Firestone, Kate Millet, Germaine Greer, Jo Freeman, Susan Brownmiller, entre otras. Otra contemporánea más centrada en el feminismo antirracista es Ángela Davis.
- Una de sus grandes amigas fue Wilma Mankiller, la primera mujer jefa principal de la Nación Cherokee.

Todas ellas son herederas de la primera ola del feminismo que autoras como Amelia Valcárcel o Celia Amorós sitúan en el feminismo ilustrado con Olimpia de Gouges, Mary Wollstonecraft o Poullain de la Barre. La época del Movimiento de Liberación de la Mujer en los Estados Unidos se puede referir como la tercera ola del feminismo occidental que estaría marcada por la publicación en 1963 de La Mística de la Feminidad, de Betty Friedan.

La segunda ola correspondería al movimiento sufragista y comprendería desde la Declaración de Seneca Falls hasta el final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y la proclamación de la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos en 1948 que reconoce el sufragio femenino como derecho universal.

Description

- En esta actividad de comprensión lectora vamos a usar el artículo de Gloria Steinem “If men could menstruate”, adaptándolo ligeramente al nivel, y realizaremos unas preguntas sobre el texto.
- La actividad tiene diferentes objetivos: no solo trabajaremos la comprensión sino que también practicaremos el segundo condicional así como la detección de conectores y adquiriremos nuevo vocabulario.

Answer

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