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
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)