Session 6B: Women and Power

1st Global Conference

Friday 1st May 2009 – Sunday 3rd May 2009
Budapest, Hungary

Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers

Lust for Body, Lust for Power: Evil & the Feminine in the Medieval West
Michelle Duran-McLure
University of Montevallo, Montevallo, USA

Giovanna I, who ruled the Angevin Kingdom of Naples 1343-1382, is an elusive historical figure despite the fact that she was one of the few female sovereigns to rule in western Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.  Described in various sources as a woman of loose morals, who openly operated a brothel in the papal town of Avignon, who conspired to murder her young husband so that she could marry her lover, it was her wanton and wicked (i.e., sexual) nature that contemporary critics as well as later historians most often implied was the reason the First House of Anjou ended when she was murdered in 1382.  This picture of a calculating, immoral, evil woman stands in great contrast to how her contemporary Boccaccio described her in his book On Famous Women, in which he stated Giovanna “is more renowned that any other woman of our time for lineage, power, and character….[hers] is a mighty realm of the sort not usually ruled by women.”  How did these two very different portraits of Giovanna come about?  To what extent did negative attitudes toward women in positions of power (and male envy of that power) affect the degree to which they were characterized as evil and immoral?  This work-in-progress investigates the origins of and possible reasons for the conflicting images of Giovanna I of Naples within the larger context of women and power in the medieval west; in particular, I examine the conflation of evil and the feminine with perceptions of immorality, female sexuality and the body.  For example, in the writings of Tertullian (c200 CE) the association between female immodesty and original sin is clearly articulated (“You are the devil’s gateway… you are the first deserter of the divine law… On account of your desert…even the Son of God had to die,” On the Apparel of Women, Book I).  By the year 1000, original sin is no longer merely associated with immodesty but is clearly linked to the desire for power and the sexuality of the female body, for example as seen in the portrayal of Eve from St. Michael’s at Hildesheim that shows her with an apple to her chest in simulation of her breast, offering it to Adam.  Thus it follows that women who hold (or desire to hold) positions of power are akin to Eve in that they too, must be evil, sexual temptresses.  It should not be surprising then, that the associations between evil and the feminine appear to have plagued so many powerful women, from Giovanna I to Marie Antoinette; the only thing that is more surprising is the role that associations between female sexuality, vice and sin continue to play in pejorative characterizations of women in power in contemporary culture and society.

Social Representation of Women: A Political Economy Approach
Babajide Ololajulo
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

Every culture across the globe is involved in the stereotypical portrayal of women. Even when such cultural stereotypes may be typically far from reality, they are often enforced by a gendered power relationship. For instance among the Yoruba people of south-western Nigeria, women traditionally played important social and economic roles in the society. They also occupied influential positions in traditional system of local administration. However, the contact of African societies with European cultures brought about some manipulation of the cultural ethos as well as serious modifications in socio-economic and cultural practices of the people, especially with regards to the position of women. The European intervention, for one, brought about the patriarchal political economy with its deleterious consequences for the social representation of women.

Women act the roles a particular culture ascribed to them. In the traditional Yoruba society, witchcraft is not gender specific only that it is regarded more as a woman cult (aje), and it’s closely connected to social control based on the belief that certain socially disapproved behaviour may invite attack by witches. Invariably, while witchcraft has been generally regarded as evil its social significance is contained in the maintenance of social order. In this manner, an element of good is embedded in evil. The male witch (oso) can be as evil as the aje but with the new patriarchy, he has more or less transformed to the wizard, a category often seen as less evil. The Yoruba witch is called iya (mother) and by virtue of the name could not have carried the image of evil from inception. Generally, the Yoruba are not given to constructing evil and good as parallels but rather as a continuum. This they reflect in their proverb, “ninu ikoko dudu ni eko funfun gbe jade”, which mean that the white porridge is a product of a black pot.

This paper, therefore, argues that what we often assume as evil about women are indeed a set of attitudes and behaviours that arise out of their location within a cultural milieu. The paper adopted the standpoint theory as a theoretical framework for explaining the representation and misrepresentation of women. Standpoint theory is a cultural perspective which offers insight into how a person’s location within a culture shapes his or her life. Whereas, the pre-colonial African society gave recognition to female spirituality and value their roles in maintaining social equilibrium, the influence of western ideas and attitudes and its “paradigm of opposition” of good (men) against evil (women) may explain the current depiction of women as evil.

Amateur Saboteurs and Khaki-Mad Dabblers: The Evil Face of Female Sexuality in Wartime Australia
Ann-Marie Cook
Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College, University of London

The Œfriendly invasion¹ of Australia by over one million American service personnel during the Second World War provoked a range of reactions, the most enduring of which was the belief that the Yanks were ³overpaid, over sexed and over here². Such criticism obscures the perspective shared by many women who actually welcomed the arrival of exotic foreigners whose wealth, charming manners and ease with the opposite sex made them seem like Hollywood screen gods come to life. Although the soldiers were frequently the targets of criticism and physical attacks from disgruntled locals who resented their presence for a variety of reasons, women faced particular censure as female sexuality was demonised in public discourses circulating among military and civilian populations alike. Initially, women were encouraged to show visiting soldiers a good time. In due course, however, they came to be seen as ³khaki dabblers² and ³amateur saboteurs² whose capacity to spread venereal diseases and alleged moral degeneracy caused them to be portrayed as threats to both the war effort and public morale as a whole. In this paper, I explore the ways in which sources such as the Australian military journal Salt, major newspapers and the work of the modernist painter, Albert Tucker, created a pervasive discourse rooted in the demonisation of female sexuality in wartime. I also endeavour to account for this scapegoating of women by situating it in relation to shifting attitudes about American masculinity, Australian masculinity and Australian femininity.