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orichalcum at 12:04am on 11/03/2009
orichalcum at 12:04am on 11/03/2009![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
stone_and_star mentioned once, years ago, having sympathy for Vashti, the original Persian Queen whose dismissal and/or possible execution made room for Esther in the Persian court. This led to me musing tonight on the problems of the Book of Esther as a feminist text.Vashti refused to display her beauty before the assembled court of Xerxes (Ahauserus), an act which violated Persian tradition and which would have publicly humiliated and dishonored her. His advisors warned that she must be punished, lest she set an example and cause other women not to respect their husbands' orders. In order to ensure women's obedience and respect, Xerxes exiles Vashti and sends messages to every part of his empire proclaiming "that a man should be ruler over his own household."
The new potential wives and concubines for Xerxes are picked on the basis of beauty alone, and Esther has 12 months of "beauty treatments" before the king falls for her and makes her queen. The first thing mentioned about her is her obedience to Mordecai's instructions to keep her nationality and religion secret. Her dominant characteristics are thus beauty and obedience. Later, Mordechai tells Esther to go plead the Jews' case before Xerxes; she does not come up with this plan on her own. She only consents when religiously and emotionally blackmailed by her father-figure. When Haman begs her for mercy, she allows Xerxes to think that Haman was sexually harassing her rather than pleading with her, and has him hanged. Then she takes his property, and then asks Xerxes to also hang Haman's ten sons.
I'm not sure how to deal with how this message of female submission and the importance of looking pretty in order to get favors from your husband, and whether it fundamentally undermines the tale of salvation and freedom from persecution that forms the reason for the celebration of Purim. Is it possible to praise Esther and Mordechai while pitying Haman's sons and being squeamish about their means of influence? How do I get beyond the image of Esther as the anti-Vashti, the vengeful pawn rather than the Queen?
As Velveteen Rabbi points out, this is also a story about a cycle of revenge and reversals, rather than forgiveness or compassion. It reminds me, somehow, of the old feminist fantasy trope of the rape-and-revenge stories - that the only way to create a female warrior figure was to have her be a rape victim who was hunting down her attackers. Can Esther only be powerful and virtuous when reacting to the threat of persecution and death? Other Biblical heroines - Deborah, Miriam, Hannah, Ruth - are noted and praised for their proactive stances and affirmative pursuit of justice and happiness. In the end, I'm not sure I'd want a daughter dressing up as Esther - any more than I'd want her dressing up as Ariel or Sleeping Beauty. Give me a role model who isn't defined by her relationship with a guy and her pretty face. (Which raises the question - do any Biblical women pass the Bechdel test???)
cold
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First of all, thanks for the credit, but many have explored these themes in more depth, starting with Midrash Rabbah on Esther itself. In chapter 2 it says that the king calmed down and remembered what he'd done to Vashti. The midrash says that he realized he'd acted inappropriately (i.e., that her behavior was correct).
Secondly, while there are other people who share your assessment of Esther, I have to disagree. It's not clear how she feels about her situation, since we don't actually hear much of her own voice. (Yes, that's its own problem, but it's true of many Biblical women.) When she does speak, it's to take Mordecai's exhortation ("blackmail" seems strong to me - he's right! her people are going to die, and she may also be killed if the king discovers her identity) and turn it into a plan that she devises on her own. She risks her life approaching the king without having been summoned, having (IMO) figured out a way to do this that is most likely to put him in a good mood.
(This next part is based partly on teachings by Rabbi David Silber of Drisha.) Esther is politically savvy enough to know how to deal with King A. When she finally brings up the issue, she makes it all about his own interests so that he'll feel inclined to help. She plays on his own fears about his power and encourages him to think of Haman as someone out to seize control.
The megillah says that Esther was involved in the writing of the story of Purim. There are hardly any places in the Tanakh that describe women writing and this is one. While there are definitely things to criticize about her behavior, choices and situation, that's true of almost everyone in the Tanakh, male or female. I don't think we have to be harder on Esther than everyone else.
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I also wanted to add that there are positive feminist implications in the practice of Purim (as opposed to its text) that should not be overlooked. The book is named after her, she's extolled as a strong positive role model, she's portrayed (at least in all the synagogues I've belonged to, which admittedly aren't a fair spectrum) as the heroine of the day, with Mordecai getting more of an assist. It's very rare to have an accessible positive female role model in this tradition. (I learned about Ruth and Deborah in school, but their stories are harder to sell.) Most of the other female characters, such as the matriarchs, are even more passive and less believable as feminist icons. To have her name on the best (from a kid's perspective) holiday of the year is worth something. Plus, Esther's fast is the only fast day on the calendar named after a woman.
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to say, you are completely right about the Vashti situation. It's really an embarrassment that some versions of the story try to sell her as a sort of villain. There's no forgiving how she is treated, and in a good hollywood movie version Ahasueros would have to be punished for it at the end. It is sort of stunning that he gets of scot free, actually.
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What I think both you and s_and_s are saying - and perhaps correctly - is that Esther deserves more credit than I'm giving her - and I think you may be right when one includes in the practice of Purim and the midrashim, although I'm less convinced by the actual text. I'm all for reclaiming and reinterpreting Esther, but I do think that's necessary for her to be a more modern heroine.
Vashti, however, definitely gets a raw deal, as I think we all agree. And there's still this strong message about the importance of respecting and obeying your husband, which I feel uncomfortable with.
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Also, you've convinced me that there's room here for a badass feminist reinvisioning of the story. If only I were a writer...
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I agree with the previous statement about "feminist" being relative to the time and place. Which stories in the Tanakh do you consider more satisfactory in that regard? You mentioned four. Deborah: comments that Barak will be punished for asking a woman to help him. Miriam: gets punished for speaking up against Moses. Hannah: accomplishes her goal, that's fair, but her goal is "have a child." Ruth is just as obedient to Naomi as Esther is to Mordecai (and uses sexuality in a similar way).
I'm not trying to be antagonistic, btw. I don't feel the need for you to be convinced by my points about Esther (or any of these women); just curious to understand your perspective better.
Oh, one more thing I almost forgot. I'm amused by this alleged "strong message about ... obeying your husband." I *completely* read that as a joke (again, with support from ancient midrash). Yes, it's what King A. says and he means it, but I think the point is that he's trying to regulate things that are out of his control and that aren't even reasonable.
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Regarding the joke issue - interesting. Coming from the perspective of someone who studies strongly misogynistic cultures, this sounded like a reiteration of basic patriarchal principles; the King is reasserting his and all husbands' authority, because Vashti has challenged it. He's just demonstrated his control by punishing her so strongly for her act of defiance.
You seem to want to separate "feminism" from "use of female sexuality," which I find intriguing here. I would argue that any ancient text which shows a woman as a clever, independent agent acting in pursuit of praiseworthy goals is feminist, because it does not (like most ancient texts) reduce women to property or male appendages. The primary tools available to women in the ancient world were their sexuality and their familial connections; I don't criticize them or see it as unfeminist when they use those successfully. How else exactly is Yael supposed to get close enough to Sisera to kill him? To view it otherwise suggests that women are only capable of virtuous acts when asexual or when "acting like men."
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I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't wrestle with ancient texts the way they are! I totally agree with that. But I don't always think you can pick a piece of text out and not look at later parts. Like in the flood story, it's significant that vegetarianism was preferred, but also that it was superseded.
I also do agree that stories of women acting as independent agents count as feminist. My point was that I don't see Esther as being very different from the other women you mentioned. Both Esther and Ruth have reactive elements to their behavior. They both use their sexuality to achieve goals that they decide are important after a family member talks to them about the situation. You say that Esther seems to be acting out of fear; to me Ruth seems kind of passive in the Boaz situation. And why is Esther acting out of personal fear any worse than Hannah acting out of personal distress at being childless?
Yael is a good point. I can't argue with Yael being an active agent (though I don't like the violence in that story).
Cruel to Haman - he was going to wipe out the Jews, I'm not sympathetic. Cruel to his sons - I hear that. I've never known what to do with the emphasis on the sons.
I'm not familiar with the book of Judith at all - I'm out of my element once we leave the Tanakh.
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Yael's morality is definitely questionable, but certainly not her actions. :)
Re Haman -yeah, there it's a matter of justice, although allowing the king to think he's molesting her seems questionable. It's really the sons where I get distressed.
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See, what I find fun about wrestling with religious texts is not giving them any slack - is saying, okay, yes, product of time and culture and so forth, but we still have to deal with this story. My favorite example here is the whole bit in Genesis about how, pre-Flood, the Lord wants us to be vegetarians, and only afterwards does He relent on eating meat. Does that suggest that it's more virtuous to be a vegetarian, and that eating meat is not really the preferred option? I don't like that idea - because I like meat - but it does make me uncomfortable. The temptation is to just ignore that section or to say "don't worry, superseded by later rules!", but it's right there in the text.
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Also, I think you broke my brain. But actually Vashti/Esther Slash could totally work. Is it possible to write fanfic in the Bibleverse??? I'm getting all sorts of vague possibilities as to where this could go but aside from a very strong feeling that it could go somewhere very entertaining (with some mild slash content), I haven't got much.
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