Blog note: This post specifically addresses archetypes in Western literature and speaks to the broader experience of western, largely European, women in the western, christian cultures that contributed these archetypes. As a result, this post doesn’t touch upon the life-experiences of women in other cultures, women of color, or women of non-christian religious traditions.
My, my, my, aren’t we just the blackest-hearted creatures to ever walk the earth? I’m talking about women, of course. If Disney, the Brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll, and Frank L. Baum are to be believed, that is. Ah, yes, mustn’t forget millenia of abysmal religion-based opinion of our fair sex as the instigator of this hate-fest.
Despite our near-universal status as chattel until very modern times (and our improvement in status is not so universal), we women are apparently the worst of villains.
History’s despots and dictators have always been men. Oh, sure you can probably point to a handful of women who wielded power for selfish purposes, but always at the side of some man. Think you know Lucrezia Borgia? Think again. She was no soulless poisoner, only a pawn in marital-alliance games played by father and brother. And poor, poor Marie Antoinette! Beheaded because the wrong people didn’t like her. That whole let-them-eat-cake-thing? She never said it. Upon further study, the picture that emerges in one of a devoted wife and mother if not the most savvy queen.
There were queens that wielded real power and ruled in their own right. Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, for example, tended to be good rulers who advanced England’s fortunes and status in the world.But, alas, any powers or privileges that a queen, dauphine, empress, or csarina enjoyed were never trickled down to her less well-situated sisters. Even with a woman ruling from the throne, common and gentle-women alike were still ruled by their husbands, fully endorsed by the Church. The Church which had a difficult time deciding if our gender was even in the possession of souls.
Why then were men so afraid of women that they had to cast women as wicked queens, wicked stepmothers, and (for the Church in particular) wicked witches? Or maybe it wasn’t fear. Maybe men were aware of the utter shittiness of their collective treatment of women. And they had to rationalize this somehow.
Humans aren’t always rational creatures but we are always rationalizing creatures. Nobody, except for sociopaths, wants to admit the real reasons why they treat others poorly, even to themselves. It’s uncomfortable and naked to admit that we step on other people, in ways great and small, to our own benefit. Or because we are self-centered, or unthinking, or presumptuous, or greedy (when you shut 51% of the population out of ownership, there’s a lot more to go around). Most people can’t be that naked, we have to cover ourselves in reasons, in excuses.
When the ruling men wanted to rook women out of their rightfuls and grab the goodies for themselves, they had to re-cast women from equals to less-thans. And they did it with words.
It is not language itself that separates us from the other animals. Our pets understand us when we say “down” or “no” or “food” to them. A handful of gorillas have been taught to use sign language. But gorillas could only use words to describe the past or the present, and only that which is real to them. We hairless apes differ because we are creators. We create and shape our realities and our futures using language, words.
Want to demote and discipline women? Make sure to use language that ensures we only be seen as helpless victims or intractable bad guys. Toss out the pagan, judgement-neutral “maiden, mother, crone”-descriptors and substitute them with “virgin/whore” or “goodwife/witch.” Cast us the foul temptresses, the sirens that lead men to their doom. All the while telling us that our place is toiling thanklessly in the home because we are the glue that binds civilization. Can’t have it both ways, boys.
When we say something you don’t like, when we refuse to be cowed, call us heretics and witches, and burn us and drown us. When we are so evidently innocent as individuals, blame the fickle and capricious nature of our sex, even if you have to make that up.
In stories, the hapless, helpless, and guileless victim is always a girl. And who is the victimizer? In reality, and throughout history, girls and women are far more likely, by an order of magnitude, to be victimized by men, not other women. But in the stories, she is victimized by the evil stepmother, the evil fairy, the wicked queen, the witch.
In “Snow White,” the wicked queen/stepmother (who is also a witch) sends her henchman/gameskeeper to kill the adolescent Snow White. Of course, the gameskeeper, who is obviously the better person due to having a penis and all, can’t bring himself to kill the the woman-child. He weeps and lets her go, into the cold, dark woods. Then he presents the heart of a pig to the witch-queen as proof of the deed. The wicked, but obviously naive, queen accepts him at his word.
As events unfold, Snow White literally stumbles her way to safety and eventual rescue and redemption, all at the hands of men (or male dwarves.)
These days, the word “witch” doesn’t carry the same kind of emotional or criminal weight in the West. So when modern men, or society in general, want to discipline a woman she is called “slut” or “bitch.” As far as we have come, there is still farther to go. When the opinions, rights, hopes, dreams, pleasures, and pains of women can be casually disregarded and dismissed with a reality-reshaping word, then we are still less-than.
But I claim the role of creator, I am shaping reality and the future right now, with these words. And I will go on being opinionated, obstinate, heretical and I will not be shaped by words that seek to lay judgement on me. Lord have mercy on any man who calls me a bitch, because I will not.
We should reclaim our old pre-christian descriptors. Once a maiden, now I am a mother. Someday, when my chicks have all flown the nest, when my hair has all turned white, and when my face is seamed with the topography of age, I will gladly embrace my status as crone. Maybe I’ll even buy a pointy hat.
Regardless of the truth or lie of words and worlds past, I think I would much prefer the company of the wicked witch/queen/stepmother over that of the insipid Snow White. Scary, uppity women like me are wicked–wicked fun to be around–and far more interesting.
And absolutely nobody ever met Prince Charming or Mr. Right while sleeping through life.