Varieties of The Fantastic in Fiction

Real Women Have Bodies is a story about the unnamed Main Character and her girlfriend,Petra. In the story we learn that there is a strange plague that is making women fade. MC  works at a dress shop called Glam and that is where she meets Petra, they soon hook up at Petra’s mother’s inn. At the inn, she learns that the faded women are being sewn into the dresses that they sell at Glam. No one knows why they do this but they stay there regardless. Soon Petra also starts to fade. At the end when Petra is fully faded the MC goes back to the dress shop and tries to free all of the women in the dresses but they refused to leave.

This story kept me thinking because we never find out why these women are fading or what happens to them after, literally no explanation is given. But I think this plague is being used to push a more modern approach to femininity. For example, the young woman who came in to try the red dress she said she loved it but “didn’t want to get a reputation” this kind of thinking is deeply embedded in women to not stand out in a certain way or look “slutty” which the color red is often associated with. Women often have to consider what we look like to the outside world (especially men) in order to be respected.  So maybe the women are being sewn into the dresses as an act of rebellion to show that they can wear what they want without being seen in any negative way.Later on, Petra says that the faded women are performing acts of “terrorism” by destroying ATMs and voting machines. This was their way of protesting and since the women started fading during the height of the ressesion it makes since they would try to mess with systems like that especially when historically women were not allowed to have their own money or vote.

Petra is an interesting character to have fade because she is not the most feminine character and her name literally means solid. There is an irony in having someone’s name literally mean solid and then them just fade away. In the beginning of the story Petra is just what her name means, she is a woman who is about her business and comes off as tough but as the story goes on she begins to become a  distraught and soft. This is due to her fading. The part when she stabs her hand at the bar I think represents her last attempt to try to be herself again and try to regain her wholeness.

Side note: I really like how Machado put little details like Petra having a smoky quartz necklace which is a smoky and transparent stone that is supposed to help with getting rid of negative energy and detoxify the body. I also liked when they went to the chapel and found that alter of Santa Rita who was a widow nun known for her mortification of flesh. Little details like this make the story feel more real and interesting.