Today I was considering Louise Bourgeois and her sculpture ‘The Blind Leading the Blind”. I have some sawn rafters from my house from when we extended the roof out. They have been propped against my wall for ages, and something about them reminds me of Bourgeois’s sculpture. They look like hobby horses, they look as if they are about to walk, they look as if they need support to walk too. How does this reference Patriarchal societies?
The blind leading the blinded – Patriarchal societies suppress women- the blinded. Those Patriarachal societies have got the world into the mess it is today.
“if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch” Matthew 15:14
Well, the world is certainly in a ditch now isn’t it?
Climate change; economic mess, erupting wars. Who do we thank for this then? Most certainly Patriarchal societies and patriarchal religions.
Within a Patriarchal society what are the leading elements?
The Law, the Church/Religion, Big Pharma, Banking ,Government/ Politics- Medicine to a certain extent .The BBC too – think how long Jimmy Saville got away with thinking
( knowing) he had total licence to abuse….
All of these institutions trample on the powerless. These are most often women and children.
But what is more insidious is that within Patriarchal societies, women are indoctrinated and accept their lesser status.
Everything is in layers – societies, meanings, complexities, skin even. So, I want to make work in layers and different media and textures.
I decided to draw on tissue paper in ink – a nice black definite line. On the silkscreen monoprints I had depicted mother earth and the church.I wanted to add a third element: Primogeniture.
I thought the church emblem was not that obvious so I drew the ecclesiastic hat, the cross and hands again in ink.
At one point I had all three in a row with an inked over image: mother earth, church and first born son on tissue paper. But I don’t think this works that well. I took all the tissue images down and superimposed them on each other – this was interesting!
Working from this I attacked the print room again drew my mother earth on a large piece of paper, then the church emblems and the first born male on tissue papers. I painted them – earthy colours for my Venus of Willendorf inspiration – yellows and white for the church and fleshy tones for the baby. As I drew the cross I thought of adding blood. Religion has been and still is the cause of considerable bloodshed. Women have been persecuted in the name of religion. (Think the burning of so called ” Witches” who were often merely widows with a bit of money or possessions, (which the Church comfiscated). Think of what happens today to women in Fundamentalist Countries). The blood drips down from the cross and stains the hands. I put some bloody fingerprints on one hand, but these may get lost in the layering. Using the tissue layers as Chine Colle, I stuck them on with spray glue and put them through the roller press – interesting effect – the tissue calms down the acrylic paint – softens it. It also gives the total image some depth – as each image is on a different plane. It has made me think how I want to use more different surfaces: newspaper – perhaps an article about some issue concerning women – silk – rougher fabrics – and tissue drawings perhaps in smaller sections.
When I had stuck on my three sections, I felt the church image was too bright and blatant – using the blood imagery I rolled out some red ink and sprayed white spirit over it . This causes a degree of “bleeding” I blot this with my tissue paper and the effect, ( I hope) is of blood droplets. Now I need to experiment using more textures and fabrics…
So, what are the elements of a Patriarchal society? Men in charge obviously, yet it is the insidious influence of Patriarchy on women, that the women themselves unquestionably follow, that concerns me.
Women used to be very powerful. Life flowed through them – as it still does, and they were revered for it. It didn’t matter who the father of a baby was. The Goddess of Fertility was worshiped.
Then the Roman concepte of Primogeniture ( the first born male inheriting everything) came along and women became incarcerated.
They became guarded vessels for precious sperm to engender revered all-inheriting-sons. Throw the misogyny of religion into this injustice and you have most of the reasons why women struggle to achieve and have been edited out of History.
Today in the Printroom I started exploring this. One of the iconic images in my mind is of the powerful Venus of Willendorf: the Mother Earth Fertility Goddess , bringer of life, and one of Civilisation’s first sculptures.
I have made a study of her along with emblems of the Anglican Church – the hat , the cross, the patronage of the wave. Then I transferred these images onto an open screen silkscreen monoprint. I will go back to this with another layer- perhaps a new born male baby – the first born heir …perhaps on another medium. Possibly on tissue paper so it is transparent – or tracing paper. I want layers of meaning.
Perhaps I’ll draw over it?
Perhaps I could do a series -up to 12 images , examining my thoughts and feelings.
Examining misogyny, primogeniture and the rest….
Many things are only skin deep and if people think we are an equal society they need to scratch a layer and really look. Women are still blamed and derided. Simple things like the Great British Bake Off unleashed massive misogyny and name calling from both trolling sexes. One woman, Ruby Tandoh ,who got into the final three, was accused of being too thin to be a good cook and of flirting with the male judge, Paul Hollywood, to stay in the show! She wrote an excellent response in the Guardian,
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/22/great-british-bake-off-ruby-dandoh>,
and is now one of their Weekend cookery writers – so good for her – and the Guardian. Women can be perpetrators of misogyny and abuse. Conditioned? Led by a male view point? FGM is a case in point. In certain Muslim cultures mothers mutilate their daughters’ gentials and the men let them. Marriage is considered the best and only future for women – and men don’t want to marry girls who may have sexual pleasure – they could be promiscuous. Ye Gods. It’s been illegal in this country for 29 years. About 24,000 girls under 15 are at risk of having their clitorises and labia hacked off every year and no one has been prosecuted as yet.( Although since I started this blog, 2 men in their 30s are being prosecuted for mutilation on a woman who had just given birth. This was at the Wittington Hospital – in a very expensive part of North London) Would our politicians have done more if men were being mutilated so that like castrated animals, they were docile and never strayed? I bet they would.
After almost thirty years of this appalling, barbaric abuse , dispite legislation against it, they are now trying to enforce it better. A lot more needs to be done, both in this country ad worldwide.
