Not a Shadow, but an Image
A controversial statue to honour Mary Wollstonecraft was recently unveiled in Newington Green. Commissioned as part of an attempt to redress the woefully imbalanced distribution of statues among the sexes, the piece depicts a naked, female figurine atop a somewhat shapeless pile. The statue immediately sparked outrage amongst feminists who pointed out that whilst supposedly honouring Wollstonecraft as the mother of feminism, in presenting her naked, the artist, Maggi Hambling, has conformed to all kinds of standards, concepts and expectations of women, their bodies, and their worth. Their response: would you ever commemorate the work of a male philosopher with a naked figurine?
Regardless of how you feel about the piece, the debate surrounding Wollstonecraft’s commemoration is an example of how painful and difficult the question of female worth is. Male expectations of women have been oppressive. Yet in rejecting these, women have tended to create anti-male categories, rather than altering the premise on which female worth is evaluated. We see this at play with the statue. I’ve not done a survey, but I’d hazard a guess that the many statues of ‘great’ men which litter the streets of London almost entirely depict their subjects with their clothes on. The logic follows that to commemorate a woman we must therefore remove her clothes because she must be their opposite, an antithesis. Except that this doesn’t get us anywhere – in fact, this kind of rejection serves to support patriarchal standards of beauty, worth and value. When we reject pink as girly, when we undervalue emotions in the workplace, when we devalue motherhood or single women, when we denigrate knitting, or embroidery, or any other thing historically associated with the female sex in order to cast off limitations, we support patriarchal assessments of these things as lesser.
But how can we do otherwise? When we live in a world where the everyone’s value is constantly subjected to scrutiny on a vast array of criteria, and when as women we feel there is an added layer of complexity to these questions because of misogyny, how do we make decisions which are really free? Is it possible for us to reject the definition of women as ‘not men’ and instead to view ourselves as ‘women’ – not a shadow of man, but an image of woman?
I’d argue yes. But we need help. We need an external power that is above and beyond the influence of human fallibility. We need a judge who can convey worth and freedom on the basis of who we are outside of the crooked constructions which are sometimes so engrained that even if we reject them, they echo on inside our minds. In short, we need a god. And not just any vague deity, but a god who would show us how to treat women, and men, in the right way. A god who would come and live and love women perfectly.
It’s why I find Jesus so compelling – he’s God, come down, living among us. God, seen embodied on the pages of history and yet entirely radical in every century for the way that he valued women. As a woman I have found that the only person who can show me where my worth really is, and who can silence every misogynistic voice in and outside my head, is Jesus Christ. In the words of another woman, who I wouldlike to see better commemorated, here’s why:
“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man - there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as "The women, God help us!" or "The ladies, God bless them!"; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything "funny" about woman's nature.” – D. Sayers, Are Women Human? (1970)
If you haven’t read any of the eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ life that Sayers is referring to as an adult, then I’d love to encourage you to do so – to see for yourself what I have found ceaselessly liberating about him. Maybe you could start here, in John 4, where Jesus meets a woman deemed worthless by her society. As you read, ask yourself do you know anyone, or anything else, whose love will restore your worth like this?
Abi
Abi studied History at Oxford, before doing a year as an intern in a Christian music charity. She now works for them part-time, whilst completing a part-time MA in Early Modern History at King's College London. She's particularly interested in tracing the roots of feminism through history, and looking at how the Bible has been used to both oppress and to uplift women. She's married to Jake and together they live in Oxford, where he works supporting Christian students.