Iris is a Messenger of the Gods of Olympus who travels on the rainbow. She is the Goddess of the Sky and Sea, and of communications She travels between Mount Olympus and the world of mortals to dispense messages from the Gods.
She also carried water in a pitcher from the River Styx to people who perjured themselves and puts them to sleep. She is often mentioned in the Iliad but not in the Odyssey. I confess I had overwritten her with Hermes and Mercury, but that was ignorance. I am so glad I rediscovered her.
Of course a Goddess who can travel between sea and sky, between Heaven and Earth, between the living and the world beyond the River Styx essentially travels between states of being. Only information, which Gregory Bateson defined as: any difference that makes a difference can flow in this manner.
We need a Goddess of Information for this Age of Information. Iris is perfect representation of this. Information can flow anywhere and everywhere. I have stated before that the internet is a woman. Check out my Googling Gaia from 2015 and The Feminization of the Interwebs from 2012 for some of the basics about this assessment.
The distributed nature of the internet was created as a base layer of ARPAnet the decentralized communication backbone for military ground communications in the Post World War II era in the U.S.This is how women naturally communicate. Linear communication is a male strategy. Networked information provides multiple linkages to the same bit of data so no one linkage failure endangers access to critical communication. This is essentially the village in the proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
At this time when the generation of data is accelerating exponentially and it is becoming increasingly feasible to encode dense context with the data, but we still need human interpretation to make it meaningful. Meaning can be implied improperly when we allow sloppy out of context decoding and other intentional distortion of information. But the ancient understanding of communication and messaging knew that it takes women’s communication methods to handle the important stuff, and when mortals perjured themselves, lied, the appropriate punishment was meted out by the same goddess that controlled the proper handling of information and messages. This seems quite pertinent in today’s world. The complexity of women’s type of information storage and delivery systems, with built in redundancy, needs to be re-incorporated into society. We need women, of a critical number, in governance and leadership positions. A more integrated method of organizing and utilizing information in our culture could address many of the problems we currently face. Prediction never works, but we do know that single channel structures are not serving us well.
Iris approves. It is time for her comeback. Communication is iconically women’s business.
Iconic H: Hype, Hyperbole, and Hymens
If we are going to cover the iconic elements of THE FEMININE some space has to be given to discussion of the concept of virginity and the hymen. This is a brief article, but a necessary one, as an iconic aspect of how women are defined depends on this trait that is largely a culturally constructed concept and not a biological state.
Whether a hymen is intact, or ever existed, is a definitive sign of nothing. This inner labial membrane does not exist in all girls; variation is the norm, with all degrees of presence and absence of the trait found in neonates.
There is no one physical presentation of this trait. So to have the social status of a girl or woman defined by something that can not be verified is not only ludicrous, but dangerous.
It is tempting to think that in the 21st Century a person cannot have her life ruined by the conjecture of others, but many extant fundamentalist religions seem to be based on such belief and men’s control over it.
The definition of a virgin is someone who has not had sexual intercourse, and the proof of this state is the presence of an anatomical state that may never have existed.
No one should need to prove such a status. That such a state or thing is believed to exist, and essentially has to be confirmed by another person, is inherently a matter of social control – not one of fact.
Language around this topic backs up the social control aspect of the concept of virginity. As most people know there are many ways to have sexual relations with others. There is nothing binary about sexuality or ways to be intimate with a sexual partner. There is no one thing that can be given nor taken.
There are many quite good explorations of this topic, some quite graphic, and I need not go into detail here and will just link to an article in the Atlantic.
Many feminist studies of this trait, as defined and managed by a patriarchal culture, see this as one of the major proofs that men seek to define and control all aspects of women in what is considered the default or basic state of relationships. This is changing for some, but no one is immune to such a s deep historical belief that spans all cultures to at least some degree.
Iconic G: Generation of Women's Generational Icons
In this post from the A to Z compendium of The Feminine Icon. We are at the letter G today. I decided to look at the way we have associated whole groups of women with a single term that captures some element of what has changed for women in a specific time period.
Most things remain the same, but difference is what is noted and categorized as capsulizing an entire generation.
Also it only takes only a few generations until you can have a totally mythic ancestor or icon, with god like properties; usually it is stated as 6 generations. So the icons covered here are only going back to late 1800s. People still living today remember people who were born in the late 19th Century.
From the Past
Gibson Girl
The idealized common woman, young and beautiful of course, of the 1890s and early 1990s was an image popularized by artist Charles Dana Gibson. The public domain image below is typical of how the girls, as they were called, were depicted. This one happens to be a beach scene.
The differences inherent to this idealized image are masculine aspects of the clothing. Not the tie and aspects of military uniforms. Corseting is still essential for anyone emulating this look, but the overall appearance is a curvy softness with hair loosely coiffed. Bare arms or neck are often featured, but usually not both. The Gibson Girl is confident and coy.
Suffragist
The next icon overlapped with the previous one. The suffragist at the turn of the 19th to 20th Century in the U.S. was seen as something quite different from any known societal element. This graphic, called the awakening, emphasized the novel west to east migration of votes for women. The classic Greek representational elements depict democracy on the move and women in the east reaching out to hurry an embrace of liberty.
But the truth is the Gibsonesque girl was a Suffragist and so was the Flapper. Both were around before women received the vote in the U.S.
In fact, this image from a Studebaker advertisement in 1920 shows aspects of all three early 20th Century types of women.
Flapper
The two images I’ve chosen to represent the Flapper shows the vast width of territory the icon covers, the fictionalized and symbolic one to the left and the reality to the right.
The artistic rendering of the Flapper in a Butterfly costume shows the new freedoms and celebratory decadence associated with the dancing and illicitly drinking woman of prohibition. Just as real as prohibition was the celebration of life that occurs after WWI.
The office workers in the Shorpy image shows more of the reality of women working so as to support the independence for which previous generations and older sisters had fought.
Bu
But then everything changed.
Dust Bowl Dorothy
Then there was this thing called the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.
Dorothea Lange, above left, the photographer who took the pic of Florence Owens Thompson, center, created some of the best known photos which came to epitomize the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The fictionalized image of depression-era dustbowl female is Dorothy Gale as played by Judy Garland.
Independence, toughness, and something closer to reality – working photographer, mother struggling to feed her family, and orphan learning to appreciate what really matters in life – captures the iconic elements of living through the pre-WWII Great Depression.
Rosies
No one during the time of the U.S. involvement in WWII called anyone who joined to workforce to do traditional males jobs in support of the war effort a Rosie. But that is how we have come to know them.
The real factory-women working during WWII was far more diverse than the icon we have come to know.
Then by 1946 and the end of the war women were to revert to classic roles as though the men had never left and women had not grown accustomed to a lifestyle predicated on working outside the home.
Donna Reed
The perfectly coiffed, home-making, mother of many, who can bring a whole community together and have a casserole baking in the oven was exemplified by Donna Reed’s role in the 1946 Capra film, It’s a Wonderful Life.
The only problem with this image is that the idealized family of the post WWII era and the 1950s homemaker with the suburban barbeque that this image morphed into never really existed. These were Hollywood and advertiser s creation. That did not stop them from becoming iconic.
Then everything changed again… but not really.
Beatniks & Hippie-Chicks
The antithesis of the 1950s homemaker, the beatnik, a chick, had an outer appearance completely different from what had come before. Jazz infused, black turtleneck and skin tight black pant clad, with an existential bent, open relationship inclined, and at best a sidekick to the male cool-cats who ruled same as men before but without the cultural constraints that layered over traditional society.
This duality in rebellion continued on into the 1960s and on to the next icon of the hippie chick.
Living Icons
Women were still not thought of as independent agents in the world, but some of them began to act the part.
As we go through time more and more references are available to confound singular images as icons. But the elements of the Generation of hippie chicks may be best contained in Joni Mitchell or Carole King. Carole King married early at age 17, the same age when she wrote, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. By 1968 she was divorced and in 1971 her album tapestry Tapestry hit the top of the charts and stayed there for 15 weeks then stayed on the charts for 6 years. These women dominated the 60s and 70s as respected, intelligent, and immensely talented forces shaping and reflecting the times.
It is tempting for most non-Boomers to think of these iconic women musicians as Boomer icons, because they were of the same age as the hippies, but actually, they were born before the post WWII baby boom began in 1943.
Similarly the next phase of proto goth punky women, who were first represented by Patti Smith were older than the first Punks and were actually Boomers. Patti was born during the first year after WWI, in 1946.
Jumbled up Sorta Now
Proto -punk Patti Smith opened the floodgates into a Goth amalgam still presenting itself into the 21st Century. These Late-Boomer and Gen-X characters, and the real women who emulated and inspired them bridged and obscured the iconic Goth iconography that included some of male Beat ethos into their own fin-de-siècle self-expression.
The iconic goth image played opposite the gray-suited working woman. But a suit does not really have enough depth to be an icon in and of itself.
Please note that nearly all of these icons mentioned above are white. Maybe we haven’t evolved much.
Shortly after the 80s something happened. The 90s. At this point in the generational discussion I feel as though I should bow out as my millennial daughter is born.
But even I noticed that something was well… something began to happen in the 90s… the new women rising were in control in ways previous generations were not. Perhaps this video will remind you of what was happening.
Then the new century and millennium brought us fully into the age of the female warrior and protestor.
Needless to say perhaps but we have pride in those who serve and in those who stand up for what they believe. The making of icons is not an easy path.
Into the Future
Still being in the moment, almost, it is difficult to say what might become iconic. We rarely have control over our own cultural encoding, but we have far more than we used to.
I think there will be many strong iconic women who become the icons of new generations.
(2011) Intersectionality and mediated cultural production in a globalized post-colonial world, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35:5, 834-849, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2011.628035
Iconic D: Diapers, Yes, Diapers
I decided to have fun with the A to Z challenge this year. So as I was searching for the perfect Icon to discuss for my The Iconic Feminine, entry D, the only iconic female, real or mythic, that I found interesting was Delilah. Sampson’s downfall. Blame the woman, cast her as the harlot, a personal saboteur. Well at least this Old Testament villain is interesting… but I just was not excited to write about her.
So I went to bed and slept on it. I awoke wanting to steer clear of Biblical icons. Religion and politics are not fun. But what had decided to embed itself in my brain for the letter D was the word diapers. The iconic femininity of diapers? Yep. I had to think about that one a while.
Diapers. Poop. Children.’s butts. Wash or dispose. Train. Health. Sanitation. Yes, these are components of the, pardon my language, the traditional shit to which women are culturally assigned and which compose some of the less glamorous iconic elements of femininity. Taking care of business family.
So far we have looked at individual meaning and societal roles of two women both named Audrey at birth. A doll that was drawn from the upscale, retail, American, 20th Century ideas of femininity. An early European Goddess concept of age, wisdom, and dark mystery. And the “motherly” aspect of dealing with life’s shit makes up a part of the Iconic Feminine too. Diapers are the perfect icon for this.
Here is a scholarly article on the History of Diapers.
And here is an article about gendered unpaid work done by women around the globe.
So no matter whether it is changing a diaper, being sandwiched between aging parents and nearly grown children, bandaging a scraped knee at a soccer game, or doing the dishes that no one else thought to do, take comfort if you can in your iconic role, and if you can’t, keep on working to change culture and teach the next generation better.
Iconic C: Not that C Word! It is Cailleach
No I am not going there. So far in this examination of the iconic feminine we have looked at the similarities of two very different women and about an iconic doll that shaped the play of girls since the mid-20th Century. It is time to delve into the cultural mythic icon. Cailleach is the Celtic Crone and she can create fear or at minimally a great deal of anxiety for contemporary folks.
Culture pretends to love the grandmother but these are individuals grandmothers we love, the aggregate of grandmothers is frightening to contemporary society. We call the generic old woman a crone, a hag, or a witch. The frightening old lady who lives near of woods and marshes just beyond the civilized edge of the village is everything that the predominantly patriarchal culture fears:
- a woman who can live on her own
- in the wild
- with knowledge of herbs and women’s wisdom
- that can influence life and death
- and women’s secret processes
- and who assist young women, birthing women, and mothers
- apart from the male controlled aspects of the village
and women sometimes join in this suspicion of the old wise woman
- as knowledge one does not have can seem strange
- the winter, or the last quarter of a long life is a distant and foreign country
- women often are afraid of losing the appeal of their good looks and fertility
The fear of aging is endemic in western culture. Appearance is valued over experience. And I have to admit I do not care for the word crone. Being very much a product of my culture I do not care for anything that conjures up the word hag. Though I embrace my age, the stereotype can make me crazy.
We need a positive word for women of age, for mature women. I love the concepts of mystery and an all-knowing vantage over life of the wise woman.
Cailleach is powerful and can bring winter, the respite of from farming and harvest, some say she grows younger as approaches, aging backwards in recognition of the cycle of life, death and rebirth that the wise recognize as an immutable truth beyond mortal life.
Celtic lands still have signs of an ancient Cailleach though they vary from rural Scotland where a still tended shrine to the goddess Cailleach exists, to the far Irish Coast where Cailleach Beara is a remembered as a Winter Goddess.
Cailleach may trace back to an Ice Age migration from the Iberian Peninsula. Ancient historians Herodotus and Pliny mentioned that Callaeci or followers of the Cailleach resided in Iberia. Other early Irish religious sources mention a Spanish origin for populations in the British and Irish Isles.
The stories of Cailleach do seem to be distinct from the pantheon of other Gods and Goddesses, and are probably older as her stories cover the entirety of the British Isles while other deities correlate with specific migrations of later times.
Further reading:
Sorita d’Este & David Rankine
2008 Visions of the Cailleach: exploring the myths, folklore and legends of the pre-eminent Celtic hag goddess. London: BM Avalonia.
Alice Guy-Blaché
Alice Guy Blaché more than deserves the first individual mention of this Women’s History Month.
When I first watched this video of a movie from 1995, I almost cried. If I had not spent most of my allotment of tears in February, I would have cried from frustration and rage. Everyone who is a student of history, women’s history, film, women founders, and so many more areas should know about this woman. I did not until quite recently. Perhaps my ignorance about her is because I exited from studies at university before Women’s Studies departments and courses were commonplace.
Between 1896 and 1920 Alice Guy-Blaché directed more than 1000 films.
Women are written out of history with such a wickedly sharp blade. Alice Guy Blaché’s story is so iconic. It seems that almost every stumbling block and tripwire that women may encounter was eventually placed in her path. When she turned much of the running of a successful company over to her husband after a successful stint in the then mecca of film-making in New Jersey, he ran off with a leading lady, gave most of her film rights away to distributors, and eventually after she followed to the then nascent Hollywood, they divorced and in the process, and she lost everything. She moved back to France with her children. There she was deemed too old to re-enter the industry. She was left out of documents in which her collaborators took credit for all early film work without ever mentioning her.
Alice was the first women film director (and producer, writer…) and the only one for almost two decades.
- In 1896, Guy wrote, produced and directed her first film, The Cabbage Fairy (La Fée aux choux), She worked at Gaumont laboratories, a photography company, as a secretary, where she met leading photographers and filmmakers in the earliest days of film in France in the late 19th Century. She convinced her employer to allow her to make a film and it was successful. She then did more films for this company, and went on to create her own films and company.
- She directed, produced, and often was screenwriter for as many as 1000 films between
- The first decades of her career might have seemed a storybook tale, but her success was based on her intelligence, her ability to manage large-scale projects, and was based on her hard work. Her feminine, integrative, and non-hierarchical approaches to creation of stories on film added to her success and the respect accorded her.
- Alice used sound synchronization and colorized film long before these came into use in the U.S.
- She was the genius who provided the basis of the success of a company formed with her husband.
- A pioneer in so many ways, she incorporated slapstick comedy before Chaplin. She used real locations for backdrops and created multi-layered sets and lighting, and added context to staging.
The less than fortunate elements of her story are very familiar to women 100 years later: joining forces with a man who betrays the woman yet reaps the financial benefits while the woman suffers financially, men grabbing credit for ideas first presented by women, being written out of historical documentation written by men, being aged out of an industry decades before a man would be considered too old to lead.
Thank heavens for female descendants. The film posted as video above is narrated by Alice’s granddaughter. Alice’s daughter also speaks in the film.
A documentary, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché, directed by Pamela B. Green was released in 2017.