So the other day I was watching an interview featuring Ezra
Miller. For those of you who don’t know
who that is, he’s a 24-year-old American actor and singer. He starred in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a film adaptation of a book of the
same name, but the reason I was watching this interview was, predictably,
because he also had a role in Fantastic
Beasts and Where to Find Them as Credence Barebone (if you don’t know what FBAWTFT is, I would be mildly
disappointed, but I realize that not everyone is as obsessed with J.K. Rowling
as I am—in a word or five, it’s a Harry
Potter spin-off).
Now, the reason this interview is important: when asked “if
you had the chance to change one thing in this world, what would it be?” he
responded immediately, “I would destroy the patriarchy.”
I think we can all agree that there are an abundance of
things in this world that need changing, but I thought that Miller’s answer was
interesting.
Do I believe that all evil on earth arises from
misogyny? Not necessarily. But I think it’s at the root of a lot of
things, and I think it’s a theme that arises in pretty much everything we’ve
looked at thus far.
There are so many references I could make here (colonization,
our summer reading books, small things or comments in daily life, even Disney
movies!), but I’m going to stick to Ancient Greece lest this post turn into a
five-page essay.
This thought struck me when we read Pericles, but that’s not
where it ended. Pericles says that
Athenian men “cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without
effeminacy,” as though womanliness were a bad thing. Then in class we discussed how Greek women
were expected to literally disfigure themselves at funerals—raking their nails
down their faces, beating at their chests, ripping out their hair…
But the fun doesn’t stop there. I learned also that in ancient Greece, women
were typically kept secluded from the world, working away as weavers in the
attics of their houses all day. Sometimes
they weren’t even allowed outside, except for during big festivals. I wondered how this could be, when the patron
deity of Athens is female herself. Sure,
she was the goddess of weaving, but she was also the goddess of wisdom and
battle strategy!
Finally, I learned of a prominent Greek woman named
Aspasia. She was actually the lover and partner
of Pericles. Some people even think she
may have influenced Socrates. But
besides being one of the only well-known liberated women in Athens, she apparently
experienced some pretty heavy criticism in her lifetime. For example, she was accused of “corrupting”
other Athenian women, she was brought to court for impiety, and she was blamed for
several wars, including the Samian War and the Peloponnesian War (for which she
was taunted with the name “Helen”).
Make of that what you will. I
know Athens is viewed as pretty great because, hello, democracy, but, at least
in my opinion, by no means was it a perfect golden society.
2 comments:
I love Ezra Miller (plus all the movies you mentioned :P) and I find his answer interesting as well; you already know this but he portrays The Flash alongside Wonder Woman, a literal goddess and arguably one of the best superheroes of the DC universe. Considering everything Wonder Woman stands for and the fact that she is usually the first to step foot in the war zone with men following suit, he must have had her in mind. She defies the patriarchy in many aspects, if not all, and I think women could have certainly used her help in Ancient Greece.
The expectations of women to remain in seclusion and harm themselves in Ancient Greece reminds me of an old Chinese custom called foot binding and its origins possibly date as far back as the 10th century during the Five Dynasties era. Foot binding was a means of displaying wealth and beauty in Chinese culture. Women could not move properly, circulation to the toes was almost completely cut off and infection often occurred as a result.
The lengths to which women in Greece and China back then had to go to uphold various cultural ideals is painful. How can a populace focus on a single aspect of the deities they pray to? That means they didn't properly honor Athena or other deities as they should have.
Margot, I absolutely love that you bring up Wonder Woman here! I think it's really insightful how you rebuke Ancient Greek society by bringing up this empowering figure of modern culture.
You also bring up foot-binding, a practice most of us remember learning about in World History. Something I think is especially creepy about foot binding is that the practice wasn't outlawed in China until the 20TH CENTURY. 1912. Although that was over one hundred years ago, it still seems so recent, like the fact that women couldn't vote until 1920. And that's honestly somewhat of a misconception, anyway, because in some states (the South, of course) African American women were really prevented from voting until the 1960's.
So about the foot binding, apparently the ideal for a woman's foot was 4 inches. Many women with bound feet were still able to walk but were very limited. In 1902, Empress Dowager Cixi did try to eliminate foot binding, but it didn't work. Something else that's kind of creepy is that parents started to bind their children's feet in the winter because the cold made the foot numb and therefore made the pain more bearable. The fact that this extremely painful procedure was so thought out, so calculated in a way, is honestly horrifying. A lot of girls even died from the infection that could accompany foot binding. And foot binding wasn't always an indication of wealth either; according to one article I read, poorer families would also bind their daughters' feet to teach them to sit still as they created textiles, similar to how women in Ancient Greece had to sit still and weave.
Post a Comment