There have been, what appears to be, an influx of ‘security alerts’ at the Claremont Colleges, an increase that seems to be congruent with the recent escalation in threats of violence on campuses nation-wide after last week’s the shootings at Virginia Tech. Although the threats here have been mild – robbery, an attempted break in, grand theft auto, stalking, and a possible attempted abduction – they do garner attention from the students and administrators of a group of colleges that pride themselves on being extremely safe places for to work, study, and live. While Asian American and immigration activists vocalized critiques of the insensitive media reporting about the Virginia Tech Shooter’s race and immigrant status I can’t help but wonder why the Claremont Colleges isn’t engaged in a similar dialogue about race-based discrimination in crime reporting. With the goal of starting a discussion about racial-profiling at the Claremont Colleges, I intend to consider how we might go about identifying this tendency and examining why racial profiling is normalized at the Claremont Colleges

In the past week, three security alerts have gone out across the Claremont Colleges that give descriptions of suspects. The first alert described an incident where a man in a car summoned a student from the sidewalk and made several attempts to coerce her into his car. The suspect was described as “an older male with gray hair and a slightly receding hairline. He was wearing a short-sleeve blue and white striped shirt and a gold signet ring with initials.” The second incident describes an attempted break in to a residence hall. Although the suspect was confronted and claimed that he was “trying to reach his girlfriend,” the only available description of the man is that he is an “African-American male in his late twenties/early thirties.” The third report was for “suspicious behavior,” and describes several men in a car – who appeared to be following a student – simply as “of Hispanic descent.”

The suspect from the first security alert, it is safe to assume, was white, because his racial identity was not deemed to be of importance by either the student who reported the incident or the campus safety officer who took down her report. White privilege, after all, is invisible for a reason. In the second and third reports, how is it that all those involved thought it justified to describe the suspects only in terms of their perceived race? My best guess: Claremont College students (assuming that a student reported these incidents), who are overwhelmingly white, embrace the racist notion that all brown people look the same. Markedly, in the case of the second alert no one can claim that they didn’t get a good look at the suspect. In regards to the third incident, it is important that we examine racialized accusations not as inconsequential crimes, but as physical manifestations of enculturated racial stereotypes. This is not to say that stalking threats do not merit appropriate judicial response; rather, it is crucial, when presented with incidents such as these, that we thoroughly investigate the racist ideological roots at the heart of racial profiling.

In a culture that indoctrinates women (or rather all white people) to fear men of color as violent sexual predators, we create artificial “security alerts” that meaningfully impact the lives of women and men of color. When campus administrators (and society at large) tell women to “Trust [their] instincts, better to be safe than sorry,” without first asking why whites tend to label men of color as ‘suspicious,’ ‘threatening’ or ‘dangerous’, we can’t expect much more than the proliferation of racist ideology, racially-motivated discrimination, and in fact, an overall artificial increase in ‘security alerts.’ This is why our prisons are bursting at the seams with people of color; dominant white society has the ability to label people of color as lazy or troublesome at best and as threatening or violent at worst, without ever investigating the racist foundations of such “instincts”.

None of this is meant to undermine the importance of security alerts to the maintenance of safety at the Claremont Colleges (I myself often wish that safety threats against LGBT populations at the 5C’s were more widely distributed); rather, I hope that we might challenge ourselves and the larger community to investigate the racist underpinnings of crime reporting on our colleges, and its implications for the lives of individuals and anti-racist activism.

One place to start with Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s work Rhetoric and Ethics: The Politics of Biblical Studies is at the beginning. In her preface to the text, she defines a number of key terms to her project as well as her goal to “re-envision biblical studies as a theory and practice of justice” (Schüssler Fiorenza ix). Among the definitions present I find two to be particularly important to my understanding both of the direction forward within the discipline and of one of the largest hurdles along the way: ‘kyriarchy/kyriocentric’ and ‘wo/men’ (and ‘wo/man’ by extension). (Although I find problems in Schüssler Fiorenza’s use of ‘wo/men’ particularly, and ‘kyriarchy’ infrequently, it should be noted that I not only find ‘kyriarchy’ as a concept to be extremely useful, but Schüssler Fiorenza’s word ‘scientistic’ as well. It perfectly articulates the use of “scientific” modes of thinking within the institutionalization and production of knowledge that Michel Foucault identifies as an apparatus of power; combined with ‘kyriarchy,’ ’scientistic’ provides us with some simplistic vocabulary that otherwise is lacking in Foucault’s explanation of these processes.) Schüssler Fiorenza identifies her view of each term clearly; ‘kyriarchy’ is meant to “underscore . . . that domination is not simply a matter of patriarchal, gender-based dualism, but of . . . [the interstructures] of domination . . . such as racism, poverty, heterosexism and colonialism” (ix), while wo/men addresses the “instability of the term” (ix) and is intended for usage “in an inclusive way” (ix) that “is often equivalent to ‘people’” (ix). Since I, too, feel that we overlook the promise that biblical/religious studies holds as a transformative force in questioning present and past kyriarchal practices and ideologies, I am also on board with the heurminutical/epistemic shift that she proposes – to “reclaim the public space of the ekklesia as the arena of biblical and religious studies” (11).

But who are we fighting for ‘radical equality’ for? Who are we including in (excluding from) the fruits of this re-visioning and restructuring of the academic-religious contexts and methods within which and through which we read the Bible/religious texts? To more fully understand the “silencing, marginalization, and exploitation” (8) that Schüssler Fiorenza herself engages in, we must bring her discussion of ‘kyriarchy’ and ‘wo/men’ under closer scrutiny, as well as Schüssler Fiorenza’s later discussion of Galatians 3:28.

Initially, Schüssler Fiorenza hits on one of the most powerful features of her newly designed/introduced analytic. The neologism kyriarchy-kyriocentrism can allow the critical deconstruction of Western binaries (5) in a way that avoids the common pitfall of many other methods of articulating power dynamics, which “unwittingly re-inscribe [existing binaries/dualisms] through [their] cultural gender analysis” (5). She goes on to add: “it allows one to understand gender not just as an ideological concept but as an ever-shifting position and social formation constituted by structures of domination and networks of power” (5; emphasis added). Despite this great start, however, she quickly becomes imbricated in the very system that she attempts to overthrow with development of the term ‘kyriarchy;’ her inculsivity breaks down as she outlines what ‘wo/men’ means (to her). While kyriarchy represents a “broader range of oppressions” (5) in their interlocking structural context, ‘wo/men’ is utilized “as inclusive of men, s/he as inclusive of he, and fe/male as inclusive of male . . . seek[ing] to signify that the term wo/men has a meaning equivalent to that of people” (6). Here lies the crux of the problem. Weren’t we attempting to subvert existing binaries and dualisms (specifically those of gender) with the use of kyriarchy? Didn’t Schüssler Fiorenza herself recognize that gender should in essence be a ‘moving target,’ fluid and unstable in part to make it an inclusive concept?

It seems that while Schüssler Fiorenza recognizes the constructed nature of gender as a method of categorization, she fails to see it in practice; there are men and there are women walking around in the world, comprising the overarching category ‘people,’ but gender-variance lacks physical form – and hence, the need to be included in her linguistic representation of ‘people’ (where have all the gender-variant people gone?). She falls into a similar trap when discussion Galatians 3:28. Verses 26-28 read:

“For you are all children of God / For as many as were baptized into Christ / have put on Christ / There is [valid] neither Jew nor Greek / There is neither slave nor free / There is no male and female / For you are all one” (154).

In reading this formulation, it is highly conceivable to interpret the Galatians 3:26-28 baptismal formula as rejecting all structures of domination. Thus the kyriocentric language of Galatians would here be translated, according to Schüssler Fiorenza, to mean: “neither Jewish nor Greek wo/men, neither slave nor freeborn wo/men, neither husband and wife” (156). If we assume that Krister Stendahl is correct in suggesting that Galatians 3:28 is an allusion to Genesis 1:27 and procreation/marriage rather than to the myth of the primordial androgyne, this would at least seem a slightly more logical translation. However, given Schüssler Fiorenza’s awareness of “language as a form of power” (ix) and her understanding of this passage as subverting all structures of domination, how is the use of the gendered ‘husband and wife’ justified? Here again, it is only in a world where gender-variance is not actually included in the physical world of ‘all people’ that ‘husband and wife’ works as synonymous for the breakdown of all “biological gender divisions” (155) through baptism. Language does function as a form of power, and for Schüssler Fiorenza’s neologism ‘kyriarchy’ to truly work in the way that she earlier outlines, it is necessary for us not only to understand that the gender-variance present in the term ‘kyriarchy’ must be carried out to its fullest extent in the language we use, but that not doing so also does violence to those subjects we disembody.

Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Rhetoric and Ethics: The Politics of Biblical Studies. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.

Via American Prospect: Barry Gewen, preview editor for the New York Times Book Review, said that the reason there are so few women reviewers is that apparently women are unable to write for general audiences on certain topics—military history is one that Gewen gave, but I suspect there existed latent and unspoken others in his mind. The Harvard Crimson has an article about the lecture in which Gewen said this (it took place at Radcliffe). Money quote:

A longtime editor at The New York Times Book Review said yesterday that his publication isn’t “doing the outreach they should” in order to recruit more women and minorities to the staff.

But preview editor Barry Gewen, who gave a talk at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, said he didn’t want to pursue potential staffers strictly for diversity’s sake.

“Looking for reviewers of a certain ethnicity simply because of an ethnicity makes me a little squeamish,” Gewen, a 17-year veteran of the Book Review, said.

Gewen has since apologized for these unfortunate comments and described it as a “Larry Summers moment”. What is amazing me, however, is not that he said it at all, but that someone in his position might still be clinging, however tenuously, to the silly and outdated notion that particular people simply can’t reach general audiences because of their identities. Do men really have nothing to learn from a woman author? Or vice versa? Or white people from black authors? What is a “general audience” anyway?

Frequently, when this kind of disgraceful statement is made, there’s a lot of furious backpedaling and “I didn’t mean it” and “I was taken out of context”. If that happens in this case—as it seems to be doing—it will represent yet another instance of a man in a position of intellectual power trying to protect that power from the evil interlopers that are somehow Not Like Him. This is, of course, morally and ethically reprehensible. Write to the NYTRB and demand that they disassociate themselves from Gewen’s remarks. Or better yet—especially if you’re a woman—become a book reviewer and write about military history. I bet there’s a general audience out there who’d love to read your perspective. You could make millions!

My entire academic career has been spent trying to imagine how feminists, queers, and trannies could embrace fluidity and diversity in a real way – a way that expanded our understanding of identity in a profound and transformational way, that did not simply assimilate differences of race, class, gender, ability, religions (and etc. etc. etc) into a preset category but rather adapted to those differences, shifting from within its liquid center. But to be perfectly honest, I never imagined so extensively as to actually conceive of a way that this would be possible. I’ve never reached the point at which I could believe. I’ve studied the shifts from second-wave to radical third-wave to post-colonial to gay to GBLT to queer to transsexual to transgender . . . and a feminists tossed out women of color and gays, and queers called gays sell-outs for marrying, and transexuals bitched that everyone else has always neglected their issues (all the while they were ignoring communities with much more gender diversity than theirs), I became unable to imagine that genuinely diverse communities could ever coexist and embrace their multiplicity, their variety.

Tonight my youthful exuberance for community was reinstilled at the L.A. Transgender Task Force’s “community dialogs variety show”, entitled “Fully Functional - Variety is a Transgender Disease”. The show, directed by Ryka Aoki de la Cruz, featured the “Fully Functional Players,” Charlene Mackenzie, Shauna Madrigal, Trystan Reese, Alexis Rivera, Skim, Lauren Steely, Jade Ross, Studs Clothing, DJ Trannity, Mr. Tuff N’ Stuff, with art by the renowned Trisha Van Cleef and others.

Besides making me feel hot and bothered, voyaristic, young, old, in love, close to tears, free, and elated, Fully Functional also fulfilled my wildest fantasies (minority identity fantasies). MTF transexuals of all races and ages, studs, femmes, genderqueers, heteros, butches, and entirely unidentifiable individuals all gathered in one room to exchange energy, music, poetry, comedy, dance, fashion, and love for four glorious hours. And on top of that, this diverse crowd made up our community. By the end of the night everyone seemed to know one another: we were all old friends – we had incredibly different lives and experiences, but we shared a deep connection that had been forged in another time and place, and it would remain despite our differences in the present.

It is difficult for me to recall exactly what happened in that space, but the feeling of hope is still with me. What is clear is that in that room no one was connected because we were all trans (or trans-loving), there was something much stronger than that among us. There was a desperation, a sense that many of us had been lost, searching for something; but there was a collective sigh as we realized, that we had finally come home.

http://www.myspace.com/skimmusic
http://www.myspace.com/tribeofthediasporas
http://www.myspace.com/studsclothing
http://www.myspace.com/jaderoxs

Both the Harvard Crimson and the New York Times are reporting that Harvard is almost ready to name its first female president– Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, the dean of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies, which emphasizes studying women, gender, and society.

That’s pretty damn awesome.

I say awesome with a caveat, of course. It strikes me as foolish to support a female candidate for any position– whether that be the presidency of Harvard or, as has been more commonly discussed lately, the presidency of the US– simply because of her sex. Leaders should be chosen on the basis of their qualifications, not any other criterion. While Dr. Faust seems like a spectacular candidate, I worry that Harvard might be attempting to redraw itself as more open to women in academia– particularly after former president Larry Summers’ much-maligned remarks on women in the sciences. Hopefully this was a small factor or none in their decision, and Dr. Faust is as qualified and ready to take the job as she appears to be.

With that disclaimer out of the way, though, I have to say that this seems like a very encouraging development. Academia is still surprisingly hostile to women, particularly in the sciences and the “older” humanities (such as history and my own field, classics). The new prominence this will give to women in academia must, I think, be a helpful force, particularly given Harvard’s clout in the research world. Harvard is still a very conservative school, both in its academics and in its politics, and I hope that having someone with a minority view at the helm will help them make some progress towards equality.

I don’t go to Harvard, and so the symbolic value of this change won’t mean as much to me as it might to a female Harvard student. However, this seems to offer the opportunity for both symbolic and real change in academia: symbolic, through the increased prominence of women in the academic world, and real, in Dr. Faust’s continued commitment to helping other women gain equality at one of the most prominent academic institutions in the world. Here’s hoping.

This blog got started when Kate and I read an essay by Annette Kolodny, entitled “Dancing Through the Minefield.” We were both struck by the following statement:

The (usually male) reader who, both by experience and by reading, has never made acquaintance with those [unique literary traditions and sex-related] contexts — historically, the lying-in room, the parlor, the nursery, the kitchen, the laundry, and so on — will necessarily lack the capacity to fully interpret the dialogue or action embedded therein; for, as every good novelist knows, the meaning of any character’s action or statement is inescapably a function of the specific situation in which it is embedded. Virginia Woolf therefore quite properly anticipated the male reader’s disposition to write off what he could not understand, abandoning women’s writings as offering “not merely a difference of view, but a view that is weak, or trivial, or sentimental because it differs from his own.”

Sitting together, we exclaimed over how well it summed up what we had wished to tell people time and again. Upon reading Mrs. Dalloway in class and having to defend the story of a woman’s ordinary day, I wanted to say just this to my (male) detractors; I wanted to point out to them that their world view was necessarily different from mine simply due to the fact that I have been categorized as “woman,” with all its attendant duties and expectations, from the moment of my birth.

This is not to say that men do not have the capacity to understand a feminine view — quite the opposite. Women have been taught to understand a male view for time immemorial, in the ivory towers of this world. It is not to say that the female view ought to be privileged above the male, though there would be a poetic justice in that, after three thousand years. Instead, it is to say that men have the obligation to attempt to understand women’s writers and women’s concerns, and that we must recognize that as academics we do not exist in a genderless vacuum.

There are other important issues tied up in this too. Kate and I are classicists; we exist in a vacuum, all right, and that’s a vacuum in which there are no women. Medea, Electra, Helen, Antigone, Dido — these are the women we find in the classics. Occasionally a philosopher has a dialogue with a hetaera, a high-class prostitute, and that’s about the extent of our knowledge of a woman who might possibly have been a real person (and even then, a prostitute and a philosopher discussing the world was likely a rhetorical strategy). Historical women, like Cleopatra and Clodia Metelli, are reviled; the ones for whom the evidence is less biased, like Tullia (daughter of Cicero), are largely absent from scholarly work. In archaeological digs, women’s relics have been ignored, packed away in boxes because they are “insignificant.”

But the study of classics is important, and not only for old white men. I believe (and here I’m definitely not speaking for Kate; I have no idea how she feels on this issue) that one must understand the dominant culture before one can fight it. In certain circles, the circles that are often reviled by feminists as “academented ivory towers,” that means understanding classics. The Western canon that today includes so few women was created on a foundation of classical education. What’s more, the Roman empire provides an eerie foreshadowing of the modern U.S.A. (see Kate’s post on the Quiverfull movement). As Santayana said, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

I hope we can remember it, and effect positive change using the lessons we learn. I hope we can somehow create not a feminist poetics but a female poetics, and also a female history, one which does not attempt to artificially inflate women’s influence on politics nor marginalize them but instead redefine, to some extent, what is important about history — what is worth our notice. Something that can stand along side men’s history and the male poetics that has historically been our outlook on literature. Something that, someday, will be unnecessary, as we move towards a holistic view of humanity.

While meandering around the classical blogosphere this morning, I came across a spectacular piece of commentary by Mary Beard, a well-known Cambridge classicist. Here’s an excerpt:

The real challenge, to take my own case, is how to stop men thinking that it is still on the margins of acceptability to pick up an exhausted student on Milan railway station, buy her a bed in a Wagon Lit, and then have (unwanted) sex with her on the way to Rome. Prosecution isn’t the only point.

Regular readers of this blog will now be expecting the ancient angle on all this. In fact the ancient debates were almost as complicated as our own, though concerned with rather different issues.

It is often said that in Athens, at least, the idea of women’s consent played no part in the control of sexual violence. That is true in the sense that the attitude of the woman’s guardian was what seems to have counted: even heterosexual rape in Athens was an issue between men. Some Athenians could even claim that seduction was worse than rape – in the sense that seducers actually won over the mind of the woman (another man’s property) to themselves.

But across the ancient world (and even in Athens) it wasn’t quite so simple.

In examining the potential problems with new consent laws in Britain, Mary Beard describes some of the most troubling and intriguing issues that surrounded rape in the ancient world. It’s well worth reading.

While I was initially troubled by her negative reaction to a law that would make it impossible for a woman to legally give consent when drunk, I can see that legislation might not be the best response to the issue of consent. This is not to say that someone can give consent when drunk, of course– rather, that the problem would be better dealt with by making people aware that drunken consent is not consent. Legislation in this case, I fear, would simply restrict behavior without necessarily reducing the number of rapes. Mary Beard’s comment on the ad campaign (see right) being conducted by the British government— “the ‘no entry’ sign stamped on the woman’s pants still suggests that the main reason you might not have sex with her is simply that you might find yourself in the dock if you did”— goes just as well for this particular piece of rape law. It would stop someone from committing rape only by inculcating a fear of being convicted, not by any increase in the general understanding of why non-consensual sex is wrong. We need to educate people, not simply describe women as “off-limits”.

Of course, the ancients (as Mary Beard astutely points out) had entirely different concerns in the question of rape. A woman’s marriage status (in both Greece and Rome) had far more influence than any question of consent on whether the act was permissible. A particularly disturbing case, unmentioned by Mary Beard, is that of Lucretia, best-known through Livy’s discussion in the Ab Urbe Condita. Her rape occurs at the end of the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, the tyrannous last king of Rome, and is actually a major catalyst for his removal from power.

Livy describes the king’s son Sextus Tarquinius getting together with several of his friends, all of whom boast about how faithful and diligent their wives are. To settle the contest, the young men go and visit each of the wives, all of whom are feasting and enjoying themselves without their husbands— except for Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, who is still diligently working at her loom despite the time. Sextus immediately decides to have sex with Lucretia, and so the next night, when he knows Collatinus will be away, he returns to Lucretia’s home. Having gone into her bedroom, he threatens her with a sword, stating that he’ll kill her if she does not have sex with him. Lucretia, however, refuses. Sextus then threatens to kill her, kill one of her slaves, and leave the body next to her— which would imply that he found the pair in adultery, and killed them both. Lucretia, far more afraid of this potential dishonor, is then raped by Sextus. The next day, she calls for her father and her husband Collatinus to come to her, and tells them everything that has happened.

They all successively pledged their word, and tried to console the distracted woman , by turning the guilt from the victim of the outrage to the perpetrator, and urging that it is the mind that sins not the body, and where there has been no consent there is no guilt.

‘It is for you,’ she said, ‘to see that he gets his deserts: although I acquit myself of the sin, I do not free myself from the penalty; no unchaste woman shall henceforth live and plead Lucretia’s example.’

She had a knife concealed in her dress which she plunged into her, heart, and fell dying on the floor. Her father and husband raised the death-cry.
(Ab Urbe Condita I.58, Livy, trans. Canon Roberts.)

This story’s outcome is deeply troubling. On the one hand, Lucretia’s father and husband are well ahead of their time in assuring Lucretia that she isn’t guilty of adultery, since she didn’t consent– a concept plenty of people still have trouble with today. The fact that she needs their assurances of her innocence, however, is disconcerting. She describes the incident to Collatinus by saying that “the mark of another is in your bed”– an indication that rape was considered more of a violation of a husband’s property than a woman’s body and mind. Yet there is still an onus of guilt on Lucretia to pay for the dishonor, and she frames her suicide in the idea of preventing other, less honorable women from abusing such an “excuse” for their own crimes. Lucretia’s suicide is also deeply necessary to Livy’s history– Collatinus goes on to swear revenge on the Tarquins for their offense against his wife, and becomes one of the first two Consuls of Rome after Tarquinius Superbus is expelled. Despite all of her family’s assurances that she need not die, the sense that Lucretia’s suicide is somehow “right” or “necessary” is solidly embedded in the story– she is considered even more honorable for having punished herself, and she provides the necessary catalyst for the rebellion against Tarquinius Superbus.

I’ve never quite been sure what to make of Livy’s story of Lucretia. I enjoy Livy’s history immensely (I am evidently among the few in that regard), yet I find this particular legend as repulsive as can be. One is left wondering whether Lucretia killed herself out of shame, or whether her suicide was coerced in some more subtle manner; her character is so clearly molded to Roman ideals that it is difficult to tell whether her motivations can be real in any way. Regardless, most of the facts at the root of the legend were probably lost long before Livy researched his history. Whatever understanding we glean from the legend is, unfortunately, limited by the unreliability of our source in Livy, and of Livy’s original sources.

It’s a frustrating topic to examine, given that we have no sources describing a woman’s perspective of rape in the ancient world. Male authors occasionally came to some truly staggering conclusions, including this gem from Lysias:

Thus, o jurors, did the lawgiver think that rapists were worthy of less punishment than seducers… considering that those who achieve their ends by force are hated by those forced, while the seducers destroy the souls of those seduced, thus making others’ wives more attached to them than to their husbands…
(Orations I.32-33, Lysias, trans. me.)

How do we accurately interpret an ancient perspective that says it’s better for a woman to be raped than seduced? How do we overcome the immediate, visceral disgust at that idea and make scholarly judgments about ancient treatment of women without being affected by emotion?

I’m honestly not sure yet. We can at least be grateful, though, that the problems in rape and consent law today are a far cry from those in the Athenian courts during Lysias’ time, or in Rome before and during the Republic. By no means should we belittle the tangled legal and social issues surrounding rape that still need to be worked out in our own societies, but I can’t help but say we’ve made some progress. Now we just need to make more.

Then,
terrified by her faith, tragic Dido prays for death,
sickened to see the vaulting sky above her.
And to steel her new resolve to leave the light,
she sees, laying gifts on the altars steaming incense –
shudder to hear it now — the holy water going black
and the wine she pours congeals in bloody filth.
(Aeneid, Virgil, trans. Robert Fagles)

The title of this blog comes from the Aeneid — specifically the fourth book of the Aeneid. It’s no surprise to anyone that classical literature is sexist, but the story of the widow Dido in particular encapsulates many of the topics we want to cover here.

If you are unfamiliar with the story, it follows from the Iliad: Greece has just conquered the city of Troy, and Aeneas leads the survivors of the city’s sack away from the ruin. He is fated to found Rome and a new empire, but before he does so he travels around the ancient world. The most significant place he and his followers halt is Carthage in North Africa, a city which was to become arch-rivals with Rome. It has just been founded and is ruled by a queen, Dido. Her husband, whom she loved dearly, had been killed by her brother (with whom she shared rulership of their father’s kingdom), and therefore she and her followers had fled her homeland to found a new city. The kings surrounding all want to marry her in order to control her kingdom, but she rejects them. But when Aeneas lands on her shores, she takes him in; she lives with him as though they were married, though no ceremony takes place. Ultimately, the gods tell Aeneas to move on and found Rome, although he’s begun a life with Dido. He does so, and in her despair (since she rejected the surrounding kings for Aeneas, they will probably attack her city now) she commits suicide.

The largest problem with this story is that the onus of the tragedy is all put on Dido. In a tragic play, the point of this story would be that Aeneas (as the tragic hero) was overcome by lust; lust would have been his tragic flaw, or possibly hubris, in that he believed he could escape his destiny and stay at Carthage. But Aeneas is the epic hero of the Aeneid. He is supposed to be emulated. He is described as “pious Aeneas,” celebrating his actions in leaving Dido.*

This story has been told and retold throughout history. Dido is condemned to the second circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno — the circle of the lustful. But it also was a piece of commentary on history when Vergil wrote it. Dido’s story echoes Cleopatra’s: she is a beautiful, powerful African queen, the effective sole ruler of her people. A Roman leader falls in love with her. Ultimately, she commits suicide. The two queens are the major symbols of Africa in Roman literature; they represent Africa as female and therefore penetrable and conquerable (to the Roman mind, to the Western mind; we all know their feelings about women).

So, Dido revisited. This time, with 100% more feminism.**

*Aeneas, to be fair, doesn’t get a great deal either. The gods kind of use him as a foosball. But at least he gets to live.

**Which is not to say that this blog is only about feminism. But it is about gender interactions and we’re coming at gender from a feminist perspective.