Amanda's Blog Entry #2

Turning back to a particular reading by Beverly Taylor, I would like to explore one idea further. Although the article heavily discourses the representation of the female savant in Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite art, I would like to examine the aspect of the article where Taylor discusses how the Victorians viewed the biology of women and the effect of education on the female body. Common Victorians belief was that the female physiology was not able to handle academic, and there were severe repercussions for educated women. As Taylor points out, the spheres of public and private life were divided among men (education/public) and women (spiritual/emotional/private), however, I question why there is a negative connotation with female education during this period as females attempt to move toward the public sphere. There does not seem to be evidence pointing to a failure of educated females in society other than some exaggerative cartoon, such as this Punch cartoon (fig.1) depicting a suffering, educated female and some  "medical" studies of the time, but I would parallel the reaction of the media to what is occurring to women in the workforce today.

As briefly hinted in Laura Mulvey’s article, the creation of particular images of women in society, such as the sexualized female, are a response to the male’s anxiety of a castrating female figure. Taking Mulvey and Taylor’s ideas combined, I would like to suggest how the negative connotation of female education or power was created by men in the media to subtly discourage women from educating themselves as it would create anxiety in men. These negative images in the media were never proven ideas, but instead were simply placed to discourage women in general, which in turn protected male dominance. It is generally understood there is a "glass ceiling" in the workforce. But this raises the question of was this idea created by men to make women think they could not become powerful if they are under the influence of this "glass ceiling" idea? Despite the time difference, in both time periods, it can be argued that discouragements come from an anxious male figurehead with the fear of a castrating female figure overtaking the male power. Therefore, an implantation of images and ideas has taken place to discourage such female power.

Fig. 1