Women in the Picture

Hopefully this book has provided some awareness of the nuances and complexities that inform our currently antagonistic debates about objectification, pornography and rape culture; about decolonisation; about gazes and what it means to see and be seen, and the privilege and power behind who is allowed to look, as we all work out new ways to leave behind those limited archetypes that blinker and distract us.

But women must write. They must, as the feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous said, ‘write about women and bring women to writing’.

In the foreground of the space, two giant bones reflect light from the screen. These bones reference the bones of ‘Lucy’, our earliest known bipedal ancestor who walked the earth of Africa over 3 million years ago.

a reminder that an artwork never just exists on a wall, on a plinth or in a museum, but also depends on who sees it and sets its meanings in motion.

Ageing in women is also not seen to be beautiful because it tends to be linked to an increase in knowledge and confidence (and sometimes, if they are privileged, an increase in economic and social power too).

Hecate and Circe’s influences live on in contemporary culture: Circe the femme fatale is the ancient ancestor of today’s sexy sorceress stock character of cosplay, fantasy epics and Halloween erotica, who also appears as a sexed-up villain in video gaming culture. And Hecate the hag informs the now ubiquitous symbol of the child-eating sterile witch with broomstick, animal ‘familiars’, long straggly hair, hooked nose, and sagging face and body.

Later on, the Roman poet Ovid was responsible for another addition to Medusa’s myth. He overlooked Medusa’s identity as a goddess and turned her into a beautiful mortal woman who was raped by the sea god Poseidon in the Temple of Athena. In Ovid’s tale, the rape angered Athena, who transformed Medusa into a monster the world would fear and ostracise. Both culpability for the crime and responsibility for the punishment were offloaded from the male actors in the story onto women, one beautiful, one jealous.

It’s possible that the Greeks didn’t like the idea of a supreme matriarchal divinity who presided over life and death, destruction and creation, so they created the myth that associated supreme reproductive powers with a male god. Medusa has been linked to the Greek goddess Metis, the mother of Athena, who was born from her father Zeus’ head after he swallowed Metis/Medusa. This may remind you of the birth of Venus we discussed in the first chapter, who was born from her father’s testicle – another story that overwrote female reproductive agency.

Before they became symbols of evil, lust and deceit, associated with the biblical fall of man in the Garden of Eden, snakes were ancient symbols of divine female wisdom, regeneration, healing and immortality. They were associated with the moon, which sloughs its shadow as it wanes and waxes – just as the snake sheds its skin. And because the lunar cycle was taken to match the life-giving menstrual cycle of the womb (another cycle of shedding and regeneration), snakes also symbolised fertility and birth.

I wonder if women are caught between the role of the maiden who says no and is taken by force, and Venus who lays out her availability as a pleasing performance, neither role matching the true, complex nature of their desires.