9
This book explores archetypal characteristics of heroines in modern history. It uses seven themes: mothers, warriors, callings, cross-dressing, death and disability, feminism and glamour to explore how the collective construction of heroines, often evoking pre-modern history, has re-formed and represented through modern time and across cultures. Significantly, the history of heroines is located at the confluence of fact and fiction and, as these pages reveal, modern heroic stories often blend myth, legend and empirical history. As a result, as icons, heroines in history involve wonder, hope and spiritual connection. Heroines also represent their times, serving as admired and inspirational role models. They offer a mirror through which to view women’s changing status in society over the past 200 years. Themes such as death and disability and feminist thought reveal remembrance for heroines and expose society’s boundaries. Often at the service of national identity, the reinvention of heroines is a measure of both their enduring presence and a reflection on different historical eras. For example, in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement, in 2021 Josephine Baker joined Joan of Arc and Marie Curie to be commemorated in Paris’s Panthéon.1
Taking a post-structuralist approach, this book has viewed heroines in history as part of the discourses in which they are embedded, focusing on how their stories were told, re-told and represented. In an attempt to identify transcultural patterns and investigate global comparisons I have cast the net widely. Whether as conservatives, radicals or even terrorists, I have focused on representations of identified outstanding icons and role models celebrated and placed on pedestals as heroines.
Importantly, the heroines whose stories feature through this book are intended as representatives of thousands more. Put together, the individuals discussed indicate a dynamic collective consciousness for heroic women. The frequent cross-referencing to counterpart heroines indicates that synergy. Significantly, the archetypal themes in heroines’ stories overcome a range of differences to operate beyond considerable boundaries, including race, class, sexuality, heredity status, nationality, location, culture and religion. They are powerful themes that recur through history.
Local social and cultural differences have, of course, also existed. They are particularly evident in heroic callings and the framing of stories. Yet, in displaying and performing gender and sexuality, the overriding archetypal characteristics are remarkably similar. The biggest shift in modern history concerns the move from heredity status icons to self-made role model heroines. In the west, the rise of celebrity and ‘people-worshipping’ in increasingly secular times has seen the term ‘icon’ applied liberally and chaotically. At the same time, technological advances have made it easier to reproduce and circulate commercial iconography, evoking the worship of spiritual icons, both ancient and modern.
An examination of heroines in modern world history reveals women’s changing place and status in society over the past 200 years. It highlights the ongoing tension between women’s difference and equality in society. Collectively, from a feminist perspective, the gendered construction of heroines as either ‘super-womanly’ or ‘honorary male’ continues the importance of an overall patriarchal framework where unnamed mothers reign as society’s ultimate heroine. Importantly, as intersectional and LGBTQ+ approaches highlight, the construction of heroines was inherently biologically determined, heterosexual and binary. Maternal ‘super-womanly’ identity often featured at the centre of heroines’ status, while ‘honorary male’ acts, most potently as warriors, cast them as exceptions. Ironically, heroines who confounded and pushed these boundaries stood out and were variously celebrated and martyred. It is worth noting that rather than gaining true equality, heroines who took on male characteristics and values, such as cross-dressing heroines, were often recast as ‘boys’ rather than ‘men.’
Given the strength of the mother archetype, it is unsurprising that heroines who strayed away from its confines, such as women rulers active in positions considered masculine, called upon the potency of the maternal when necessary. And with mothers ideologically located away from the ‘public sphere’ of masculine heroes, it is also unsurprising that the United States of America is yet to elect a woman leader. The relative rarity of sporting heroines is a testament to the importance of the value of women’s bodies centring around child-bearing and caring.
Although being heroic in modern times often meant adapting lifestyles and masculine attributes previously reserved for men, the importance of image-making glamour has persisted and re-formed. For example, despite the efforts of aviatrices, the battle for women’s equality in the skies was lost. Rather than a place in the cockpit at the controls, women’s place in the sky was predominantly as flight attendants, offering feminine service to customers as ‘trolley dollies.’
With different archetypal themes more prominent across eras and places, what defined the early 21st century? Four discordant concluding examples capture continuity, change and context.
Barbie heroines
Deeply representational, dolls have an age-old evolving history. In modern times, dolls passed from homemade rag, woollen and wooden examples to plastic mass-produced factory models. American Barbie dolls were first manufactured by toymaker Mattel in 1959 and developed as an iconic global brand. Analysing the significance of the dolls, Martine Delvaux argues that ‘Sold as a democratic dream, Barbie is in fact a totalitarian dream. Barbie is one of the faces of this state-fuelled commodification of women built on their serialization.’2
Barbie became synonymous with the modern western objectification and commodification of women. The doll was positioned as the antithesis of the second wave feminist goal of freeing girls and women from lives that, according to Simone de Beauvoir, cast them as ‘living dolls.’3 Susan Faludi defined feminism as ‘It is the simply worded sign hoisted by a little girl in the 1970 Women’s Strike for Equality: I AM NOT A BARBIE DOLL.’4 Furthermore, late 20th-century feminism focused on critiquing role model play with dolls that performed binary, heterosexual genders and a different and unequal place for women in society. Barbie dolls were criticised for representing an unattainable body image and of promoting a white, western standard as the dominant sexual persona of the times.5 It was argued that they objectified women’s bodies and deemed their value as coming from their glamorous image, rather than their beliefs and actions – that they hindered women from being ‘real.’6 Symbolically, women underwent cosmetic surgery in order to mimic standards portrayed in their plastic Barbies. Disturbingly, if women were ‘dolls’ then they were subject to sexual violence as toys and playthings. As Martine Delvaux powerfully states ‘Barbie is the image of what happens to women, their invisible and silent murder.’7
On International Women’s Day in 2018 heroic iconography appeared in the form of Mattel’s new Barbie doll range that it trademarked ‘Inspiring Women.’ In an act of deep irony, the producers of the iconic modern plastic doll moved away from image and superficiality to appropriate women of substance. They did so with the justification of making dolls like real women. Mattel claimed to act in response to criticism gained from its market research. A survey of 8,000 ‘mothers’ had revealed that 86 per cent of them were ‘worried about what kind of role models their daughters are exposed to.’8 Rather than stop manufacturing, Mattel adapted to keep up with social change and stay in business. Instead of Barbie dolls with generic plastic bodies to be clothed and posed, senior vice president and general manager of Barbie, Lisa McKnight justified making dolls that resembled ‘real’ women by arguing that they were now engaged in ‘shining a light on empowering role models past and present in an effort to inspire more girls.’9 It was about exploring ‘limitless potential while learning about the incredible women who helped pave the way for them.’10
The first three heroines ‘honoured with a doll in their likeness’ were aviator Amelia Earhart, NASA mathematician and physicist Katherine Johnson and artist and political activist Frida Kahlo.11 Each doll came with information about ‘the way each woman shaped society.’12 Helen Keller and Maya Angelou were later additions. Some of the world’s most famous pathbreaking women of substance who had sought careers outside of their physical appearance were now re-imagined in plastic. Far from Barbie’s origins, the Inspiring Women range attempted to represent global, cultural and racial differences. People were invited to ‘Join the conversation. Share your role model using #MoreRoleModels.’13
High-jacking the news on International Women’s Day, reporting was mostly favourable. The most critical angle concerned the Frida Kahlo doll. Kahlo’s great-niece, Mara de Anda Romeo claimed that the rights to Kahlo’s image were not cleared with the family. Mattel had gained its permission from the Frida Kahlo Corporation that owned the rights to Kahlo’s name and identity.14 It was not the first time that communist Kahlo’s image was used for consumption and profit. Since Kahlo’s 1954 death her image has featured to promote products from tequila to lip gloss.15 More generally, as this book has revealed, from Grace Darling’s appearance on chocolate boxes to multiple products sold featuring Marilyn Monroe’s image, it was common for images of heroines with their iconic appeal to be used for commercial purposes. Its potency perhaps tapped into spiritual heroine icon worship.
Celebrity mothers
Reminiscent of the mother medals discussed in Chapter 1, reiterating its importance, heroic motherhood was reinvented in the early 21st century in a country with an official one child policy. If heroines went plastic, motherhood went celebrity. In the early 2000s China’s 100 Excellent and 10 Outstanding Mothers awards emerged. For example, in 2006 the All-China Woman’s Federation (ACWF) and 16 co-sponsors implemented a 10 Outstanding Mothers Campaign. According to Yingjie Guo, the campaign was about modelling social roles and values, and that an ‘exemplary mother as celebrity is a peculiar hybrid that combines traditional virtues and Maoist values and is publicized like a popular star.’16 She argues that in the context of ‘dramatic social change and escalating value divergence’ the campaign was ‘to set up examples of Chinese mothers who personify the values that the Party-State wishes to promote and to encourage.’17
The 100 Excellent and 10 Outstanding Mothers were advanced as ‘excellent’ and ‘Chinese’ and possessing ‘exceptional motherly virtues.’ They were mostly aged 41 to 60 years of age, employed in professions, married, committed to their children’s education, devoted to their families and socially responsible.18 They were also ‘voluntary social workers and philanthropists’ whose work included having adopted or cared for orphans or homeless children. Echoing characteristics for heroines concerning women’s weakness and the ever-presence of sickness, death and disability, four per cent of the 100 Excellent Mothers were seriously ill or disabled, 14 per cent had children who were seriously ill or disabled and 13 per cent were widows.19
Significantly, while they were modern celebrities, none of the 100 Excellent Mothers were involved in ‘glamorous professions’ such as acting, film-making, singing, dancing and modelling and none were engaged in sports or hospitality or business. On the contrary, they were multi-tasking beacons of modern Chinese state respectability. Their occupations included teachers, university lecturers, agricultural workers and factory workers.20 Rather than glamorous image, it was their careers and family duties of substance that counted towards their promotion as celebrities. Both icons and role models, they appeared on television and film screens, were paraded on speaking tours and wrote their stories for publication.21
Modern martyrs: Pussy Riot
In 2012 the Russian punk band Pussy Riot performed for 40 seconds in the priests-only section of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.22 They swore and their outfits included neon balaclavas and exposed shoulders, all of which were offensive in that setting.23 Pussy Riot were activists for social change in gender, equality and human rights. Overall, their ‘songs, letters, poems and court statements are about civil rights in Russia.’ They were particularly concerned with corruption and the government’s ‘strategic alliance’ with the powerful Russian Orthodox Church.24 Their punk prayer to the Virgin Mary engaged with a long chain of Marian worship. In the cathedral their music rang out calling upon Mary to become a feminist and join them in protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin, riotously singing out ‘Putin away.’25 They were arrested and charged with felony hooliganism and incitement of religious hatred.26
Pussy Riot’s actions evoked unruly radical activist heroines in history, including Qiu Jin, Constance Markievicz, Rosa Luxemburg, the Suffragettes and many others who were imprisoned for their expressed beliefs, sometimes paying with their lives. Pussy Riot also drew upon a tradition of heroic performativity that creatively combined elements of pageantry, fantasy and glamour. They succeeded Elizabeth I’s elaborate Gloriana funeral effigy, Suffragette pageants, female imperialists dressed as Queen Victoria, the shrine of Ba Chua Xu, the Lady of the Realm and Judy Chicago’s gathering up of heroines at an art installation dinner party. Pussy Riot was part of a feminist global artistic protest movement and was known for ‘unexpected performances in different urban spaces.’27 They were directly inspired by America’s Guerilla Grrrl art and Riot Grrrl’s punk music activism.28 They had previously staged a Red Square performance of ‘Putin has pissed himself.’29 Their cathedral protest was deliberately chosen to occur during the dressing up and dancing time of the religious event Maslenitsa or Butter Week. That festival marks the week before Russian Orthodox Lent and is also believed by some to have ancient pagan links to bringing in the spring.30
In August 2012 three members of the band, Maria Alyokhina (Masha), Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Nadya) and Yekaterina Samutsevich (Katya), were found guilty of the felony hooliganism charge and were sentenced to two years imprisonment.31 They appealed their sentence and on 10 October Katya’s sentence was suspended, while the other two appeals were denied.32 At their trial the prosecution argued that they had caused ‘profound insult and humiliation to the faithful.’33 One of the witnesses stated that ‘It was a witches’ ritual.’34 Witnesses used their understanding of ‘feminism’ as a bad word. Their interest in critiquing the relationship between Church and State led to their being accused of religious hatred. While they had sought Mary on their side, some women at the trial accused them of denigrating Mary.35
Echoing the trials of other heroines in history, the Russian State needed to side with the Church and strongly condemn Pussy Riot’s challenge. Furthermore, they had already performed elsewhere and needed to be stopped. Pussy Riot’s defence attorney Violetta Volkova argued that they were in court for their political beliefs, and not because they sang and danced in the church in the wrong clothes, in the wrong place and made the sign of the cross the wrong way. In her closing statement she said ‘In 2012, time turned back to the Middle Ages.’36
Pussy Riot’s protest was a response to a Russian Orthodox Church-sponsored travelling exhibition of religious relic the Holy Belt of the Virgin.37 With Russian population decline viewed as a problem by Church and State, the belt had arrived from Mount Athos Vatopedi Monastery in Greece and was said to have powers to help childless women conceive. The belt also travelled to pregnancy centres where women considering abortion were counselled.38 Over three million people, approximately a million of them in Moscow, filed past the relic on its tour.39 Pussy Riot critiqued the strengthening connection between Russian Orthodox Bishop Patriarch Kirill and Putin. It also viewed the touring relic and its promotion of traditional family values as ‘a sign of Russia’s ominous slide into the Dark Ages.’40 Furthermore, Masha Gessen argues that the timing of the tour, shortly before Russia’s national parliamentary election, ‘conveniently monopolized news coverage as growing public protests were threatening Putin and his United Russia party.’41 Pussy Riot’s Prayer implores Mary to join in protest against the belt and sings out that the relic is an unsuccessful decoy to distract attention away from political agitation.42
For their supporters, Pussy Riot were heroines, ‘who resurrected the power of truth in a society built on lies.’43 They appeared at their trial hungry, sleep-deprived and in a Perspex cage.44 Incarcerated, they were also modern martyrs. While in prison they went on hunger strikes to protest their treatment, with Nadya writing in September 2013 ‘I am declaring a hunger strike. This is an extreme method, but I am absolutely convinced it is my only recourse in the current situation.’45
A modern eco-warrior Joan of Arc?
The 2018 appearance of Swedish teenage eco-warrior for climate change Greta Thunberg evoked past self-made heroines, turned to in times of crisis for deliverance. Armed with her lunch and a pile of pamphlets, 15-year-old Thunberg started her protest alone, outside the Swedish parliament during school hours. After her first day others joined in as part of her School Strike for Climate, an action inspired by an American high school’s strike against gun violence after a mass shooting. Thunberg’s specific intention was to persuade Sweden to honour the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and more generally to ‘save the planet’ from environmental destruction.46
Akin to heroines such as Rosa Parks who were ‘sparks that lit the flame,’ Thunberg’s mission spread rapidly through social media.47 She gained thousands of followers around the world who mobilised into a global protest movement ‘Youth Global Strike for the Future,’ Protests were held in over 150 countries, where over 7 million youth took to the streets.48 In 2019 aged 17 Thunberg was the youngest person to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.49 Diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, while she faced derision from those who considered it a disability, Thunberg has referred to autism as her ‘superpower.’50
Thunberg was called to action after hearing disturbing stories at school ‘about what humans had done to the environment and what we were doing to the climate, that the climate was changing.’51 As with other heroic reformers, at first she was ignored and became depressed. Like Joan of Arc, she had a visionary dream:
I have a dream: that governments, political parties and corporations grasp the urgency of the climate and ecological crisis and come together despite their differences – as you would in an emergency – and take the measures required to safeguard the conditions for a dignified life for everybody on earth.52
Against the odds, Thunberg defiantly stood up and followed her calling. She made it to the United Nations Climate Action Summit in the United Nations General Assembly where, employing a common tactic of warrior heroines for centuries, she told world leaders ‘how dare you!’ for coming to young people for hope, chastising them and shaming them into action.53 Like Joan of Arc, whose first visit to Vaucouleurs led to her being sent home with a message that her father should give her a spanking, Thunberg was ridiculed, told to let the adults and scientists fix the problem, ‘be a good girl’ and ‘shut up’ and go home, where she should be sent to her room as punishment and to calm down.54 As Joan of Arc had embarrassed the authorities in her time, Thunberg’s presence shamed the politicians.
FIGURE 9.1 Greta Thunberg speaks at the Houses of Parliament, London, England, 23 April 2019.
Credit: Alamy stock photo Image ID: WTFX9M: https://www.alamy.com/greta-thunberg-addresses-politicians-media-and-guests-with-the-houses-of-parliament-on-april-23-2019-in-london-england-image273257200.html
The history of heroines reveals that the stories we tell about individuals are transmitted from the past. They involve patterns replete with symbolism that resonate across cultures and different sectors of society. As the 21st century recovers thousands of increasingly diverse global historical heroes, it is what these stories collectively represent and tell us about society, and the archetypal characteristics that they reveal, that is most significant.
Notes
1 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58303919 (Date last accessed 29 September 2021).
2 Martine Delvaux, transl Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood, Serial Girls: From Barbie to Pussy Riot (Toronto: Between The Lines Press, 2016), 46.
3 Delvaux, Serial Girls, 23.
4 Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (New York: Crown Publishers, 1991), 14.
5 Paglia quoted in Delvaux, Serial Girls, 26.
6 Delvaux, Serial Girls, 21.
7 Delvaux, Serial Girls, 30.
8 https://www.boredpanda.com/international-women-day-inspiring-role-models-barbie-dolls/ (Date last accessed 12 March 2018).
9 https://www.boredpanda.com/international-women-day-inspiring-role-models-barbie-dolls/ (Date last accessed 12 March 2018).
10 https://barbie.mattel.com/en-us/about/role-models.html(Date last accessed 12 March 2018).
11 https://barbie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/inspiring-women-series#facet:&productBeginIndex:0&orderBy:&pageView:grid&minPrice:&maxPrice:&pageSize:&contentPageSize:& (Date last accessed 12 March 2018).
12 https://www.boredpanda.com/international-women-day-inspiring-role-models-barbie-dolls/ (Date last accessed 12 March 2018).
13 https://barbie.mattel.com/en-us/about/role-models.html (Date last accessed 12 March 2018).
14 Brooke Marine, ‘Frida Kahlo Would Not Have Approved of Being Turned Into A Barbie Doll,’ 9 March 2018. https://www.wmagazine.com/story/frida-kahlo-barbie(Date last accessed 12 March 2018).
15 https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/352233/row-erupts-over-barbie-doll-based-on-artist-frida-kahlo (Date last accessed 12 March 2018).
16 Yingjie Guo, ‘China’s Celebrity Mothers: Female Virtues, Patriotism and Social Harmony’ in and Louise Edwards and E Jeffreys (eds) Celebrity in China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 45–66, 46–7.
17 Guo, ‘China’s Celebrity Mothers,’ 63.
18 Guo, ‘China’s Celebrity Mothers,’ 52.
19 Guo, ‘China’s Celebrity Mothers,’ 54.
20 Guo, ‘China’s Celebrity Mothers,’ 59.
21 Guo, ‘China’s Celebrity Mothers,’ 60.
22 Pussy Riot! A Punk Prayer for Freedom: Letters from Prison, Songs, Poems and Courtroom Statements Plus Tributes to the Punk Band that Shook the World (New York: The Feminist Press, 2013), 7.
23 Pussy Riot!, 53.
24 Pussy Riot!, 7.
25 Pussy Riot!, 13–14.
26 Pussy Riot!, 17.
27 Pussy Riot!, 41.
28 Masha Gessen, Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot (London: Granta, 2014), 61–2.
29 Pussy Riot!, 16.
30 Pussy Riot!, 39.
31 Pussy Riot!, 7.
32 Pussy Riot!, 9.
33 Pussy Riot!, 53.
34 Pussy Riot!, 52.
35 Pussy Riot!, 37–8.
36 Pussy Riot!, 62.
37 Pussy Riot!, 16–7.
38 https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/10/belt-of-virgin-mary-in-russia-for-first.html (Date last accessed 6 August 2019).
39 Gessen, Words Will Break Cement pp. 76–7.
40 Gessen, Words Will Break Cement, 108–10.
41 Pussy Riot!, 17.
42 Pussy Riot!, 14.
43 Gessen, Words Will Break Cement, back blurb.
44 Gessen, Words Will Break Cement, 182.
45 Gessen, Words Will Break Cement, 293.
46 Greta Thunberg, I Know This to be true: Greta Thunberg on Truth, Courage and Saving Our Planet. Interview and photography Geoff Blackwell (Auckland: Upstart Press in association with Blackwell and Ruth, 2020), 12–5.
47 Thunberg, I know this to be true, 34.
48 Thunberg, I know this to be true, 15.
49 Lily Dyu, Earth Heroes: 20 Inspiring Stories of People Saving our World (London: Nosy Crow, 2019), 10.
50 https://researchautism.org/greta-thunberg-likens-autism-to-superpower/ (Date last accessed 17 October 2021).
51 Thunberg, I know this to be true, 33.
52 Thunberg, I know this to be true, 19.
53 https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit (Date last accessed 29 September 2021).
54 Andrea Hopkins, ‘Joan of Arc’ in Sara Hunt (ed), Heroines: Remarkable and Inspiring Women: An Illustrated Anthology of Essays by Women Writers (Glasgow: Saraband, 1995), 33–7. https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/116217937/former-top-gear-presenter-jeremy-clarkson-calls-activist-greta-thunberg-a-spoilt-brat (Date last accessed 29 September 2021).