Blaze: the intimate vision of feminism - Volume 2, Number 4, June 1986 Page: 6
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journals
good-then ugly translates old and mean. It gives children a
negative view of aging.
Bettye McLaughlin
I have always felt that advertising is really a form of propagan-
da, but to now 'see" that the fairy tales are a form of propaganda
that have been used for centuries to sway our thinking has been
the real eye-opener.
These stories that I grew up with, watched movies about, read
aloud to my own children, and now, after all these years, to see
vhat I never "saw" in them before-it is astounding.
I admit to being a sentimental fairy tale lover and owner of
several fairy tale books. My latest book is titled Elijah's Violin and
)ther Jewish Fairy Tales. I find that there are Jewish versions of
underella and Rapunzel. Other stories in this book might have
ome from the pages of the Arabian Nights (which I also owned
s a child) and the genie is often played by Asmodeus, king of the
emons. His uniqueness is that he performs good as well as bad
needs. But whereas before it seemed only natural that the good
'oman image would triumph over the bad woman image, I now
ee that this good woman image is a reinforcement of the good
oman image in Proverbs. This in itself is not bad, it just seems
y advertising.
Rose Biderman
Question: The male as the sole or primary creative force has been
a theme of both cosmology and biology. Outline the basic tenets
or patterns of this theme. Discuss the implications of this theme
for images of women, especially in the area of artistic creativity.
Excerpts:
In the creation myths it seems that men go to all lengths to deny
the literal creative power of women (giving birth) because they
fear that what women create will be more powerful than
themselves. Over and over undeniable fact (that women are who
actually bear the children) is mitigated by men, as in the case of
Eve being created from Adam's rib. The message is clear: God
may have let Eve and her descendants create life by bearing
children, but it is never to be forgotten that He created Eve from
part of a man's body, so men can claim that no daughters or sons
would be on this earth if not for a man's rib. Theogony does start
out with female parthenogenetic birth, but goes to great lengths
to end up with birth from the mind/reason ("male domain") as in
the case of Zeus. In Enuma Elish, the universe is created from a
woman's body, but only by killing the goddess first, implying that
destruction of the female is necessary in order to create life.
Biologically speaking, since ancient times women have been
created "by mistake" due to scientific facts such as the absence
of enough heat to create a male. Ironically, contemporary science
has come full circle by suggesting that women are a
chromosomal accident in recent theory.
In terms of figurative creation, men creating women as art ob-
jects continues today even as on the day "Pygmalion" was writ-
ten. My brother thought his wife was beautiful before they mar-
ried, but he was determined to "perfect" her.
As a condition for a kiss, he pressured her to quit smoking. As a
condition for marriage, he pressured her to renounce religion
(she was Catholic) He found his beauty molded her over to ab-solute perfection, and proceeded to marry his very decorative
and "pure" creation. Through the power of male words, my ex-
sister-in-law was "created" in the same manner as Eliza Doolittle.
I was fascinated to see Susan Gubar saying, "In terms of the
Pygmalion myth. . .the woman who cannot become an artist can
I know that a large part of this "block" is a defiant
reaction against my father's great expectations of my
creativity and against competing in the "star" arena.
nevertheless turn herself into an artistic object." I am a painter
and have undergone the equivalent of writer's block for most of
the last eight years. A great deal of my creative energy goes into
creating a highly individualistic fashion aura instead. I am
notorious for my outrageous outfits, hairstyles, etc. I refuse,
however, to see this as "narcissistic self-destruction." I derive
great pleasure from it. I do admit that part of the motive, however,
is to turn myself into an art object which will attract men.
Gubar is speaking of me when she says, "For the artist, this
sense that she herself is the text means there is little difference
between her life and art. The attraction of women to personal
forms of expression such as . . . autobiographies, . . . diaries ...
points up the effect of a life experienced as an art or an art ex-
perienced as a kind of life ..." In reaction I realized that my entire
independent study with Nancy is comparing myself to an Egyp-
tian statue. It is, in effect, turning myself into an art object. Once
again, I refuse to take this as any kind of judgment upon myself
and my art. I take it instead as an eye-opener about myself and
the lack of distance between myself and my art.
I had an artist boyfriend in Los Angeles at Art Center College of
Design. I will never forget the letter he wrote me in which he said,
"You will probably find that it is a good thing to be able to
separate yourself from your work-you never really find yourself
in ART. There are some things ART can never say. I'm glad
you're painting but I wouldn't worry if your style is 'worthwhile.' "
He had many pithy things to say, but I now look back in anger at
his smug superiority. I was too young to know better, but I set
myself up for a classic trap. He was a better artist than I, and at
the same time I "needed" to look up to a man more powerful than
I was.
This brings me to a quote from Germaine Greer's The Obstacle
Race: "Too often women must love where they admire, and ad-
miring emulate, and by emulation are absorbed into the myth of
the master. . only if the woman artist begins to count the cost, to
jeopardize her sexual happiness by. . .struggles for freedom,
does the outside world even guess that an individual talent is at
stake... For every woman who struggled to assert herself against
the power of love, there are literally hundreds who submerged
themselves so willingly that their activity has left no perceptible
trace. The phenomenon is older than painting itself."
It is no coincidence that my "painting block" began just around
the time that this young man I had on a pedestal rejected me and
rapidly surpassed me at school, earning scholarships, intern-
ships, and high visibility in the school gallery (all of which I worked
18 hours a day to achieve, and none of which I ever garnered). I
dropped out of school, convinced I would never succeed among
the likes of James and the other "star" students. Gubar says,
"Women writers often dread the emergence of their own talents.'6
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Berman, Linda; Komechak, Kim; Johnson, Paula; Gibson, Sue; St. Germain, Sheryl; Gilmore, Sheri et al. Blaze: the intimate vision of feminism - Volume 2, Number 4, June 1986, pamphlet, June 1986; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1484080/m1/8/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.