Cleopatra and the Male Gaze
This morning in his excellent Link Salad, jaylake pointed to a New York Times article about the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago completing their dictionary of Demotic, the language of the common people of ancient Egypt. It was an excellent piece. But about three-quarters of the way through, the author talks about how Demotic reveals more personal and more human details of Egyptian life. Here's the passage that pissed me off in full:
The translation effort can have its rewards, including a new understanding of what Dr. Allen called an X-rated Demotic story well known to scholars. The hero in the story goes into a cave to steal a magic book. A mummy there warns it will bring him disaster. Soon he is entranced by a woman who invites him to her house for sex, but she keeps putting off the consummation with endless demands and frustrating conditions.
On the subject of sex, Demotic scholars said the lusty Cleopatra, the last of the pharaohs and presumably the only one fluent in the common speech, probably spoke only Greek in her boudoir. That was the language of the ruling class for several centuries.
Dr. Johnson, who specializes in research on the somewhat more equal role of women in Egyptian society, said Demotic contracts on papyrus scrolls detailed a husband’s acknowledgment of the money his wife brought into the marriage and the promise to provide her with a set amount of food and money for clothing each year of their marriage. Other documents showed that women could own property and had the right to divorce their husbands.
Can you figure out what pissed me off so thoroughly? There, that middle paragraph. This is how those three paragraphs sum up to me: Demotic lets us read sexy stuff about Egyptians that we never could before. Remember Cleopatra? She spoke Greek while she had sex. Women all over her country were treated more like people than this journalist will treat the empire's last queen.
What the f*cking hell? I haven't been so thoroughly irritated by a science journalist in a long time. Since I couldn't find a comment button on the article, here's what I wrote to the author directly:
"I was fascinated to read your article about the new Demotic dictionary. Your article is packed with interesting information, and as an Egyptophile, I was excited to understand how much more we'll learn about ancient Egyptian life as a result of this work. I was dismayed and disappointed, however, by the unnecessary sexualization of Cleopatra in what should and could have been simply a factual assertion. Why make a point of characterizing her as lusty and speculating on the language she spoke in the bedroom? Why not just mention that in private life she spoke Greek? Clearly a number of her predecessors spoke the same language, all of whom were men, and you chose not to characterize any of them in the same way. Every time a journalist reduces Cleopatra to the caricature of a scheming sexual vixen, they obscure the fact that in a world where men ruled, she was highly educated and politically canny, charismatic and enormously powerful. It's past time that Cleopatra was given her due as the political powerhouse she was without having to put up with the unnecessary speculations of the male gaze and the prurient peek-a-boo attitudes about her personal life. This one paragraph distracted me unpleasantly and unnecessarily from what was otherwise excellent journalism. As a regular Times reader, I'm very disappointed."
Disappointed doesn't nearly cover it. F*ck.
The translation effort can have its rewards, including a new understanding of what Dr. Allen called an X-rated Demotic story well known to scholars. The hero in the story goes into a cave to steal a magic book. A mummy there warns it will bring him disaster. Soon he is entranced by a woman who invites him to her house for sex, but she keeps putting off the consummation with endless demands and frustrating conditions.
On the subject of sex, Demotic scholars said the lusty Cleopatra, the last of the pharaohs and presumably the only one fluent in the common speech, probably spoke only Greek in her boudoir. That was the language of the ruling class for several centuries.
Dr. Johnson, who specializes in research on the somewhat more equal role of women in Egyptian society, said Demotic contracts on papyrus scrolls detailed a husband’s acknowledgment of the money his wife brought into the marriage and the promise to provide her with a set amount of food and money for clothing each year of their marriage. Other documents showed that women could own property and had the right to divorce their husbands.
Can you figure out what pissed me off so thoroughly? There, that middle paragraph. This is how those three paragraphs sum up to me: Demotic lets us read sexy stuff about Egyptians that we never could before. Remember Cleopatra? She spoke Greek while she had sex. Women all over her country were treated more like people than this journalist will treat the empire's last queen.
What the f*cking hell? I haven't been so thoroughly irritated by a science journalist in a long time. Since I couldn't find a comment button on the article, here's what I wrote to the author directly:
"I was fascinated to read your article about the new Demotic dictionary. Your article is packed with interesting information, and as an Egyptophile, I was excited to understand how much more we'll learn about ancient Egyptian life as a result of this work. I was dismayed and disappointed, however, by the unnecessary sexualization of Cleopatra in what should and could have been simply a factual assertion. Why make a point of characterizing her as lusty and speculating on the language she spoke in the bedroom? Why not just mention that in private life she spoke Greek? Clearly a number of her predecessors spoke the same language, all of whom were men, and you chose not to characterize any of them in the same way. Every time a journalist reduces Cleopatra to the caricature of a scheming sexual vixen, they obscure the fact that in a world where men ruled, she was highly educated and politically canny, charismatic and enormously powerful. It's past time that Cleopatra was given her due as the political powerhouse she was without having to put up with the unnecessary speculations of the male gaze and the prurient peek-a-boo attitudes about her personal life. This one paragraph distracted me unpleasantly and unnecessarily from what was otherwise excellent journalism. As a regular Times reader, I'm very disappointed."
Disappointed doesn't nearly cover it. F*ck.