International Perspectives on Gender

Week 8:

Feminism, Orientalism and Nationalism

Edward Said1935-2003

OrientalismPublished 1978

The Snake CharmerJean Léone Gérôme c1870

The Snake Charmer focuses on a naked boy handling a python while an old man plays a fipple flute. Watching intently is a group of mercenaries differentiated by the distinctive costumes of their tribes, by ornaments, and by weapons. Such erotic and exotic imagery of Near Eastern subjects was very popular in the late nineteenth century. Despite the nearly photographic realism employed by Gérome, the painting is a pastiche of Egyptian, Turkish, and Indian elements that have no basis in reality.

Source: The Clark Institute

John Frederick LewisAn Intercepted Correspondence, 1869

Pool in a Harem

Jean Léone Gérôme

1876

Offensive and inaccurate portrayal of India

Depicts the Goddess Kali, Hindu Goddess of Energy, as evil, from the underworld.

Depicts Indians as eating ‘baby snakes, eyeball soup, beetles and monkey brains’.

From the dark, over-crowded, twisting, dangerous alleys of Jerusalem to the white cliffs of Dover and thesafety of the bright, empty expanses of England

James Mill (father of John Stuart Mill)1773 – 1836

Mother India: Selections from the Controversial 1927 Text, Edited and with an Introduction by Mrinalini Sinha

by Katherine Mayo

Eleanor Rathbone1872-1946

Author of Child Marriage: The Indian Minotaur

Published 1934

Mary Daly1928 - 2010

Published 1978

http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/reflections/winter2008/modern_stilettos.html

Source: Reflections on Health in Society and Culture, University of Virginia

Nation and Narration 1990

Homi BhabhaBorn 1949

Statues of Britannia

Liverpool Town Hall

Plymouth Hoe

Strident: A model posing as Britannia with sackloads of protest slips destined for Downing Street

[Daily Mail campaign toGet Britannia back onthe 50 pence coin]

Marianne, Symbol ofThe FrenchRepublic

Statues ofMother Russia

Rosie the Riveter Poster, created by J. Howard Miller for US War ProductionCo-ordination Committee (WW2)

Elizabeth L. Gardner, Women’sAirforce Service Pilot (WW2)