| Medical texts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were dominated by fears and concerns over the effects of chronic constipation on general health. Specifically, female constipation was considered to be particularly damaging. Additionally, advertisements for food products also portrayed constipation as debilitating and dangerous for women. Although the human colon is a sex-neutral organ, medical professionals and food advertisers converted the large intestine into a gendered part of the female body.;Amid concerns over urbanization and industrialization, constipation became a medical ailment related to hygiene and morality. Because women were the keepers of national morality, their internal intestinal health was considered particularly fragile and in constant peril. This national obsession with women's bowel movements reflected the larger tendency for women's health to become the barometer for national health and morality. If American women were crippled by their sick colons, the nation was undergoing a crisis of virtue.;Although the increased focus on women's colons freed them from restrictive Victorian medical ideas about their inherently disabled uteruses, they were still expected to maintain their intestinal health in order to fulfill very specific gender roles. Additionally, doctors blamed women for their problems with constipation by attributing the ailment to particularly hyper-feminine behaviors. Constipation was both caused by and a threat to their womanhood.;Examining the curious case of national obsession with female constipation reveals the culturally constructed aspects of the science of medicine. We are reminded that medicine is not only based on tests and data, but on cultural ideas of appropriate womanhood and a reliance on understanding women through prescribed gender roles. |
