Pyrrhic Victories

Shakespeare’s As You Like It explores the consequences and goals associated with female crossdressing and societal power dynamics. From a historical perspective, crossdressing has often played a role in pop culture, but hidden crossdressing has also revealed how established power structures react to violations of gender roles and how those reactions speak to the outlooks of transgressive women. DeAnne Blanton’s piece “Women Soldiers of the Civil War” in the National Archives documents women who secretly served in the military during the Civil War by disguising themselves as men. Unlike Rosalind’s guise as the notorious Ganymede, these women appropriated generic male aliases to not raise suspicion.





Rosalind/Ganymede and Orlando's mock marriage in the forest

            Blanton writes, “The reading public, at least, was well aware that these women rejected Victorian social constraints confining them to the domestic sphere” (Blanton). Yet was their primary goal to rebel against these constraints and experience a more independent life outside the household or fight for the victory of their respective allegiances? No one knows, but regardless of their motives, the consequences of such actions appear to be the same in the context of mid-19^th century America and Shakespeare’s play. Even though Rosalind and Celia apparently wish to avoid conflict with their disguises as men, they, like the women who fought in the Civil War, end up seizing a measure of unconventional authority only to circulate more collective powers to men.

As Valerie Traub cites in her essay we read, Louis Adrian Montrose frames Rosalind/Ganymede’s power as a temporary misrule that ultimately transfers “authority, property, and title” to other men (Traub 136). Similarly, the female soldiers would have ended up doing the same, for their actions were ineligible for measurement in terms of merit while other male soldiers became heroes, garnering praise and material rewards. “The press seemed unconcerned about the women’s actual military exploits. Rather, the fascination lay in the simple fact that they had been in the army,” Blanton writes (Blanton).




Frances Clayton serving in the Missouri artillery during the Civil War

            The single instance in Shakespeare’s work where women take an interest in combat comes as Orlando prepares to wrestle Charles. “…are you / crept hither to see the wrestling?” Duke Frederick asks Rosalind and Celia (1.2.127-8). His comments indicate that he is  somewhat amused by their presence and does not think these women could ever have a serious appreciation for violence. In the context of the female soldiers, this hints at a tendency for male-driven social structures to discount the possibility of women serving in the military in the first place. Ironically, this tendency leads to rigid defense mechanisms to maintain systematic pride when evidence of crossdressing women in the military surfaces. In one letter, General F. C. Ainsworth writes, “I have the honor to inform you that no official record has been found in the War Department showing specifically that any woman was ever enlisted in the military service of the United States…at any time during the period of the civil war” to a researcher even though abundant evidence suggests the opposite (Blanton).

            So what does this mean for the outlooks of crossdressing women in the Civil War and Shakespeare’s play? In my opinion, the aforementioned parallels between the female crossdressing in As You Like It and the Civil War along with the reactions of individuals and institutions suggest that any amount of power, agency, and/or opportunity drawn from such actions by women are very limited and rely on others for their fruition. Rosalind/Ganymede demonstrates this after binding other male and female characters into marriage agreements. “I have left you commands,” she says before leaving (5.2.111), demonstrating that instead of her agency backing her commands, the force of the imperatives rests between the promises and enforcement of and by the other characters only. So although crossdressing women have the ability in these contexts to channel authority normally reserved for men, such victories are pyrrhic victories because they ultimately return authority and circulate rewards back to men in relation to their inability and unwillingness to view the actions and intentions of female crossdressers outside of gendered expectations. What do you all think?

Here's the link to that article if you all are interested.

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1993/spring/women-in-the-civil-war-1.html

Helen: Prude or Slut?

While reading All's Well That Ends Well, I was struck with just how familiar Paroles's arguments about virginity sounded. And, in fact, despite his less-than-upright character, I have to admit that I liked (parts) of what he was saying, if only for the humor he presents.

Let's start with Helen's question: "Man is enemy to virginity: how may we barricade it against him?" (107-108). Instead of a consensual act between two parties, sex here is clearly depicted as an assault upon a woman's honor by a lustful man. Problem number one. Virginity is put upon a pedestal; a woman who has her virginity intact is pure, clean, and desirable, and as soon as she loses it, she is ruined. We've all heard it before.

With that in mind, I found Paroles's answer to be particularly hilarious. He says "there was never a virgin got till virginity was first lost" (121-122), and that "To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your mothers, which is most infallible disobedience" (128-129).

Paroles makes me laugh here, because what he says is so true. Virginity in Shakespeare's day was idolized; a woman's entire worth depended upon her chastity (remember Lavinia?). Today, while a woman isn't completely valued based on the status of her virginity, it is still of the utmost importance. I like what Paroles says because his tongue-in-cheek comments ring true. The concept of virginity as a means to value and devalue women is ridiculous. On the most visible level, if all women strove to preserve their virginity, humanity would cease to exist. Sex, as Paroles points out, is not only natural; it's common. Every mother was once a virgin, yet we don't denounce our own parents as whores.

Though I don't agree with Paroles's main point, that women should have sex solely to procreate, I do appreciate a Shakespearean voice denouncing the value of the protected virginal status. Somewhere hidden in his snarky humor and off-the-cuff remarks lies a real argument against the practicality of coveting a woman's virginity, and that is something I can agree with.

A Tragedy of Principle

            In the article we read by Coppelia Kahn, Kahn asserts that “Lavinia…helped precipitate rape by boasting of her chastity…” (Kahn 64). From a psychological standpoint, I wondered why Lavinia decides to employ a biting tone unique to her otherwise reserved role in the play.
“’Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning, / And to be doubted (suspected) that your Moor and you / Are singled forth to try experiments,” Lavinia says to Tamora upon seeing her with Aaron in the forest (2.3.67-9). After Chiron and Demetrius murder Bassianus, Lavinia becomes fiercer still. “Ay, come, Semiramis (Assyrian Queen with attributes of the Goddess of Lust Ishtar) – nay, barbarous Tamora, / For no name fits thy nature but thy own,” she scolds (2.3.118-9). Given that Lavinia does not give caustic criticisms or personal attacks at any other point in the play, why would she do so now, especially as she faces the wrath of Tamora and her sons?
            I’ve attached a link to a recent article examining the psychology of "slut shaming". According to Marisa Taylor, "slut shaming" has less to do with sexual behavior as was previously thought and more to do with social class. Sociologists followed fifty-three women from their freshman year of college until after graduation as part of a five year study, examining their social behaviors. Professor of sociology and organizational studies Elizabeth Armstrong noted that in general women who perceive themselves to be higher in the social hierarchy engage in "slut shaming", or “…the practice of maligning women for presumed sexual activity,” to make room for their own sexual promiscuity. The study concluded that the overall purpose of slut-shaming is to send a message to lower-class women that they aren’t welcome in high-status groups.
            Putting Lavinia’s actions in this contemporary perspective, I see two possibilities as to why she feels comfortable criticizing Tamora. Either Lavinia views Tamora as lower in Rome’s social order because of her outsider status (her “otherness”) and wants to make clear that she is not welcome or views herself as above or exempt from the kind of social order where Tamora is higher. I think that the latter is a much more interesting interpretation because it speaks to the patriarchal origins of Lavinia's belief system.
            From the play’s beginning, Lavinia is “Rome’s rich ornament” (1.1.52). Her agency is as a valuable object to Rome and most of the characters, namely men, for her ability to serve (you guessed it) men. Lavinia is an ornament, a jewel, a form of currency backed by the gold standard of her chastity. Following my “thesis,” Lavinia attempts to supersede Tamora in the social hierarchy by virtue of this status. Lavinia scorns Tamora’s sexuality to demonstrate that she believes she is higher in a society where Tamora is considered royalty as a matter of principle. Lavinia does not heed her situational reality (for Chiron and Demetrius are about to ravage her) or agency (for she has no agency of her own to lose as an object viewed in terms of her service to men). And since Lavinia is obviously not slandering Tamora's sexuality to make room for her own sexual promiscuity, I believe that Lavinia’s comments show her supreme adherence to patriarchal principles where a woman's sexuality may be put under a microscope at the expense of, well, women, leading only to women losing more and more of their agency through objectification overall. For Lavinia looks and more like a mute object than ever after her disfigurement, and Tamora goes on to willingly discard her agency as a woman (in becoming Revenge) while ironically looking like an object (without hands) in the movie we watched. What does everyone think?
           

 

Slut-shaming has little to do with sex, study finds

 

Here's the link to that study, if you guys are interested.

Queered Villainy Just Keeps Happening

While reading Shakespeare’s bloody “Titus Andronicus,” I couldn’t help but find a wellspring of commentary on harmful masculinity. For Rome and its patriarchy, Titus feels that he must kill Tamora’s son Alarbus at the beginning of the play, and this action sparks a revenge plot so twisted that by the end, for the patriarchy, Titus must kill his sullied daughter Lavinia to restore his entire family’s honor. Masculinity and patriarchy are the root of all evils.

So why hasn’t that message translated quite so well to the modern screen?

Of the men of the play, in terms of general terribleness, Chiron and Demetrius, Lavinia’s unrepentant rapists who are in it for the “fun,” top the list. In Titus (1999) they are depicted as Tamora’s golden boys, one with shoulder-length blond hair, and the other with short hair clearly bleached blonde. They embody 90’s era stereotypes about young goths (the black-wearing kind, not the long-gone civilization kind) as well as LGBTQ young men. They horse around, shout at each other, and even play video games – and if that last part doesn’t come straight out of theories about the Columbine shooting which took place earlier that year, I’ll eat my hat.

"Rape" even has moose antlers and blush.

It’s kind of incredible how de-masculinized they are in Titus, actually. In the play, the stage says that Chiron and Demetrius enter “braving,” presumably fighting with swords while arguing about Lavinia. It’s not hard to imagine a pair of knightly boys fencing over a woman, is it? Yet in the movie they are armed with tiny little daggers, and even rip their outer clothes off as they get into the fight, taking a bestial tone rather than a courtly one.

Then, to really hammer the nail in, they show up in their outfits for their mother’s cunning plan to trick Titus Andronicus. “Murder” appears in a tiger’s habit, and “Rape” appears in a bra and make-up, with an animal fur draped over his shoulders. They seem animalistic and feminine, especially next to Tamora (who really only resembles a very pointy knife-y Star Trek: Voyager Borg Queen). In plain words: they look really, really stereotypically weird-animal-queer.

Borg Queen on left, "Revenge" on right. See it?

So here’s my question to this adaptation of “Titus Andronicus.” Why are your rapists the most queer-coded characters in this story? Titus Andronicus is full of criticism of a heteronormative patriarchy. When you make Chiron and Demetrius deviant stereotypes, you take away some of the impact of that narrative, you know. Suddenly, there’s a force other than straight masculinity at play, and it’s not only doing harm, but it’s doing some of the most violent harm in the story.

Worse still, this cruelly mischaracterizes LGBTQ individuals, a problem which has been around in mainstream media for a while and shows no signs of going away.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) features the serial killer Buffalo Bill, infamous for his (or her?) long, drawn out scene where he horrifically dons his make-up and dances in womens’ skin – violating their bodies in a whole new way. Modern procedural shows like Psych and NCIS often have large casts without a hint of LGBTQ representation but episodes where lesbians and trans women are murderers.

If Titus was going for something “modern” and “edgy” with its interpretation of Chiron and Demetrius, I’m gonna say it completely missed the mark, falling short of even Shakespeare's commentary on masculinity, written in Elizabethan times. This film just played into some nasty tropes that harm people instead.