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Jul 14, 202112 min read

How have representations of female anger, & responses to it, changed since the early modern period?

By Arianna Koffler-Sluijter

Edited by Tyler Morgan and Mark Potter





The patriarchy upholds the emotional norm for women to be passive and calm by negatively

representing female expressions of anger and through this, it functions as an emotional regime or community. This concept has not changed significantly since the early modern period, especially for black women. The terms ‘emotional community’ and ‘emotional regime’ are applicable to the patriarchy as they are relatively similar. They both refer to a group of people who share the same emotional norms.[1] The difference lies within Rosenwein’s argument that ‘regime’ is too harsh and cannot be applicable to premodern societies ‘in which power is more dispersed.’[2] Within these structures, emotions are assessed ‘as valuable or harmful to them’, and the patriarchy has decided that women’s anger is harmful.[3] Thatsame emotion is celebrated when it is righteously expressed by ‘men, mainly elite men.’[4] Anger is mirrored through a variety of words, including wrath, fury, frustration etc. It has been linked to ‘an evolved ‘fight’ response’ and a reaction to ‘a significant damage to something or someone one cares about.’[5] In this case, the damage is related to the systematic oppression of women. Intersectionality between types of oppression (race, ability, class) play a role in the demonisation of anger, and the stereotype of the ‘angry black woman’ is particularly harmful. Physically, anger was gendered beginning with the humours. It was believed that the ‘female body was colder and moister than the male body’ and this difference was used as a reason for women being ‘more emotionally volatile than men, whose hot and dry constitution kept them more stable’.[6] The kind of anger that could survive in women’s supposedly colder and wetter nature was ‘smouldering and long-lasting’ and less justifiable than men’s, who could argue that they were unable to control their quick tempers and thus could not be held responsible for them.[7] This essay will focus on artistic representations of female anger. Starting with Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes (1620) and comparing this to the representations in postcards of the anger of women fighting for suffrage in early 20th century Britain. The continuity in society’s response to female anger is that it still will not let black women express it.


Artemisia Gentileschi encapsulated her ideas of rage into her painting Judith Beheading

Holofernes (1620). Referring to her by her first name may seem informal and infantilising, but it is the standard for famous Italian artists and is useful to distinguish her from her father, Orazio Gentileschi, who was also a painter.[8] Gentileschi was the ‘leading female artist of the Baroque period’ and an important follower of Caravaggio.[9] She painted the biblical tale of Judith and Holofernes, where Judith sneaks into the Assyrian Camp, to murder the General Holofernes before he can destroy the city she calls home, Bethulia. The Bible was the source of early negative representations of female anger in that it taught ‘that it is better to dwell in the wilderness than with an angry woman’.[10] Women’s anger is portrayed as demonic as Christians believed that ‘hell is the source of women’s wrath’.[11] Angry women are transformed into witches if they dare express it. [12] Artemisia, though, took this story and displayed Judith’s anger. Judith can be seen with her sword sawing through Holofernes’ neck, blood wildly shooting from his severed veins, as her hand holds his head down and her maid stops him from moving the rest of his body (Figure 1).[13] Her mouth is not opened to show her yelling, her face is not filled with any specific emotion, but her actions are enough to prove her fury. Artemisia’s interpretation differed from other artists painting the same story; they ‘focused on the ideals of beauty and courage’ evoked by Judith, whilst she chose to paint the ‘story’s gruesome climax’ of the beheading.[14]


It is a well-known analysis that Artemisia’s anger at her experience of being raped and put

through a traumatic public trial is what influenced this painting.[15] In her late teens, she was raped by Agostino Tassi, a friend of her father, who was a painter and her tutor. Though she was tortured to determine if she was telling the truth, the same methods were not applied to Tassi, who got to walk free afterwards whilst she ‘was forced to leave Rome’.[16] Thumbscrews were the method of torture used, which could have ruined her career as a painter.[17] This interpretation of the painting should be nuanced as it emphasises Artemisia as a victim.[18] Indeed, reading her experiences into all of her work can become an ‘entirely reductive way to look at it.’[19] The brilliance of her talent is able to stand apart from her experiences which influenced her work; nonetheless, Judith and Holofernes is still an affirming representation of female anger.


The response to Artemisia’s artwork was overwhelmingly positive, as she enjoyed a lengthy

and fruitful career. After moving to Florence, she became the first female painter accepted into the Accademia di Arti del Disegno, a prestigious artistic body.[20] She was also ‘friendly with the members of the Medici court’, who were some of her patrons.[21] Artemisia travelled within Italy to Venice and Naples as well as internationally, to London, to be commissioned for her art.[22] There is ‘no reason to think that Artemisia’s fame was in decline before her death’.[23] The painting of Judith Beheading Holofernes is not an exception to this career, as Salomon refers to it as Artemisia’s ‘most highly touted and reproduced work’ that ‘holds her place in the art history canon’.[24] Her career surviving her expression of anger is explained by her anger being the only type of respectable fury. It was expected for her and her family to express their disappointment, frustration, and wrath at Tassi’s sexual violence, because she had been dishonoured by it.[25] In this way, her anger is an exception to the rule of the patriarchy suppressing women’s fury, as it was acceptable for it to be expressed in this specific way in response to this specific crime. Though she enjoyed success during her life, at some point, her story was marginalised, only to be recovered by feminist revisionism in the twentieth century.[26] The painting of Judith and Holofernes no doubt helped fuel this rediscovery.


Around three-hundred years after Artemisia’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, women under

western patriarchal systems were still fighting to have their anger respected and listened to. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, British women were fighting for their right to vote. Part of this campaign included several militant factions, the most significant of which

was the Women’s Social and Political Union (WPSU), also known as the suffragettes.[27] What began as interrupting meetings and heckling political speakers, escalated to arson, and bombing by 1912.[28] It thus became an important part of the campaign to stop women being granted the vote to portray these militants as irrational, destructive, overly emotional, and ultimately angry. The Daily Mirror used humour to ‘detract from the political dimensions of the WSPU by making it appear over-feminine and consequently somewhat frivolous.’[29] These prejudices were the very reasons the women had not yet been granted the vote and the anti-suffrage campaign saw militancy as further confirmation as to why women should not be enfranchised.[30] More than just the anti-suffrage campaign portraying these women as dramatic and over-emotional, the existing historiography can also contribute to this by viewing ‘militancy as a desperate measure on the part of the politically irrational.’[31] Works that are included in this trends are those by George Dangerfield, Martin Pugh and Brian Harrison.[32] The treatment of this behaviour as irrational undermines the real reasons campaigners felt they had to resort to militancy.[33]


Artistic representations of suffrage campaigners and militants began to be produced by these

anti-suffragists portraying their behaviour as violent, destructive to traditional family structure, and unreasonable. Postcards were particularly useful due to their ability to circulate faster and in larger quantities.[34] One postcard titled ‘taking it out on hubby’ from 1908 shows a woman campaigning for suffrage leaning over the dinner table to yell at her cowering husband, who hides behind a book (Figure 2).[35] Even the family cat is hiding from her. The woman is clearly expressing her anger as shown by her open mouth, mid-shout, and outstretched hand. Her body is taking up a significant amount of space in the postcard, the insinuation being that physically and politically, the idea that women should have that space is ridiculous.


Another postcard titled ‘suffragists on the war path’ shows a group of women violently

attacking a police officer (Figure 3).[36] One woman is jumping on his back as he lies on the

ground, another swings her umbrella to hit him, and another removes his hat; all these women are represented as expressing their anger at their lack of suffrage through this violence. This particular postcard is supposedly representing ‘suffragists’, so it is not even in response to the anger of militant suffragettes. Christabel Pankhurst, co-founder of the WSPU looked down on the term suffragist as it was ‘someone who merely wanted to vote’, whilst suffragette ‘indicated someone who was taking action to get it.’[37] It is thus clear that it is problematic to group all those campaigning for suffrage under the same label, as they had vastly different opinions on how to go about it. The message of the postcard was sparked by the notion of women having the audacity to ask for a vote, not their extreme violence in campaigning for it. From Artemisia in the 17th century Italy, to the Suffragettes in twentieth century Britain, the patriarchy has upheld the emotional norm that women should not publicly express their anger, especially if that anger is because of their systemic oppression by such a system.


The experience and representation of anger in black women differs fundamentally from white women, due to the intersectionality of factors of oppression in gender and race. Anger is an act of rebellion for white women, as it is expected that they suppress it. The societal expectation for black women though, is that they hold an abundance of anger. The revolutionary act is not its expression, but for it to be listened to and respected by the people it is expressed to. The expectation of black women to be angry, stems from racism; African American people have been ‘represented as savage and ignorant’, with black women ‘portrayed as angry and uncontrollable’.[38] Williamson wrote that in the case of anger, ‘their concerns as women to be secondary to their concerns as black people’.[39] The stereotype of the ‘angry black woman’ stems from that of the ‘Sapphire’ as well as the ‘Mammy.’[40] Marcus discusses anger as one of the emotions ‘that provokes the most hostility from the powerful when expressed by the powerless’, so it is logical that it would be an emotion harder to express and accurately represent for those who are powerless is more than one way.[41] Several high-profile black women have had to suppress their anger in order to be respected including Serena Williams, Michelle Obama and Rosa Parks.[42]


The stereotype of the ‘angry black woman’ has been successfully challenged in music, with

artists like Nina Simone and her 1964 song Mississippi Goddam.[43] More recently, rapper Rico Nasty has challenged the stereotype in her 2019 album Anger Management.[44] Stereotypical representations are also beginning to be challenged in the world of art, as exhibitions like the Alexandria Museum of Art’s Beyond Mammy, Jezebel & Sapphire: Reclaiming Images of Black Women have become popularised and widely produced.[45] Political activists, such as Audre Lorde, have also been campaigning for black women to feel safer in expressing and representing their own anger.[46]


In conclusion, the patriarchy functions as an emotional regime and community where women are taught to suppress their anger through the demonization of representations of that gendered emotion. Black women face the stereotype of overwhelming anger from both their race and gender, therefore in understanding how black women express and represent their anger, this intersection is crucial. There was little change in this emotional norm between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries in the West.




















Figure 1: Artemisia Gentileschi, ‘Judith Beheading Holofernes’ (c. 1620).












Figure 2: ‘Taking It Out on Hubby’ (c. 1908).












Figure 3: ‘Suffragists on the War Path’ (c. 1907-1918).


Notes


[1] Damien Boquet, Didier Lett, and Siân Reynolds, “Editorial: Emotions and the Concept of Gender”,Clio: Women, Gender and History, No. 47 (2018) p. 14; Barbara H. Rosenwein, Anger: The Conflicted History of An Emotion (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2020), p. 3.

[2] Jan Plamper, William Reddy, Barbara Rosenwein and Peter Stearns, ‘The History of Emotions: An Interview with William Reddy, Barbara Rosenwein and Peter Stearns’, History and Theory, 49/2 (2010), p. 255.

[3] Carrie Hamilton, “Moving Feelings: Nationalism, Feminism and the Emotions of politics”, Oral History, 38/2 (2010), p. 86.

[4] Rosenwein, Anger, p. 177.

[5] “Anger”, Emotions Lab <https://emotionslab.org/emotion/anger/> [Accessed 07 May, 2021]; Martha C. Nussbaum “Beyond Anger”, Aeon <https://aeon.co/essays/there-s-no-emotion-we-ought-to-think-harder-about-than-anger> [Accessed 07 May, 2021].

[6] Lisa Perfetti, “Introduction”, in Lisa Perfetti (ed.), The Representation of Women’s Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), pp. 4-5.

[7] Kristi Gourlay, “A Pugnacious Pagan Princess: Aggressive Female Anger and Violence in

Fierabras” in Lisa Perfetti (ed), The Representation of Women’s Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, p. 140.

[8] Bridget Quinn, Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and History (In That Order) (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2017), p. 25.

[9] Flavia Frigeri, Women Artists (London: Thames and Hudson, 2019), p.12.

[10] Jane Marcus, “Art and Anger”, Feminist Studies, 4/1 (1976), p. 69.

[11] Marcus, “Art and Anger”, p. 70.

[12] Michael Ostling and Laura Kounine, “Introduction: ‘Unbridled Passion’ and the History of Witchcraft”, in Laura Kounine and Michael Ostling (Eds.), Emotions in The History of Witchcraft (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), p. 2.

[13] Artemisia Gentileschi, ‘Judith Beheading Holofernes’ (c. 1620), Painting, The Uffizi

[14] “Violence and Virtue: Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Judith Slaying Holofernes”, Artic

[15] Nanette Salomon, “Judging Artemisia: A Baroque Woman in Modern Art History”, in Mieke Bal (ed.), The Artemisia Files: Artemisia Gentileschi for Feminists and Other Thinking People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 54.

[16] Frigeri, Women Artists, p. 12.

[17] Skye Sherwin, (2020) “Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaving Holofernes: a vision of vengeance”, The Guardian <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/oct/09/artemisia-gentileschis-judith-

slaying-holofernes > [Accessed: 06 May, 2021].

[18] Elizabeth Cropper, “Life on the Edge: Artemisia Gentileschi, Famous Woman Painter”, in Keith Christiansen and Judith W. Mann (eds.), Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 265.

[19] “Judith Beheading Holofernes”, The National Gallery

[20] “Judith and Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi”, Visit Uffizi

[21] Quinn, Broad Strokes, p. 31.

[22] Cropper, “Life on the Edge”, p. 264.

[23] Cropper, “Life on the Edge”, p. 270.

[24] Salomon, “Judging Artemisia”, p. 54.

[25] Cropper, “Life on the Edge”, p. 264.

[26] Mieke Bal, ‘Introduction’, in Mieke Bal (ed.),The Artemisia Files: Artemisia Gentileschi for Feminists and Other Thinking People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. ix. [27] Harold L Smith, The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign, 1866-1928 (Harlow: Longman, 2010), p. 34.

[28] Laura E. Nym Mayhall, “Defining Militancy: Radical Protest, the Constitutional Idiom and Women’s Suffrage in Britain, 1908-9”, Journal of British Studies, 39/3 (2000), p. 341.

[29] Krista Cowman, “Doing Something Silly’: The Uses of Humour by the Women’s Social and Political Union, 1903-1914”, International Review of Social History, 52/15 (2007), p. 261.

[30] Lauren Alex O’Hagan, “Contesting Women’s Right to Vote: Anti-Suffrage Postcards in Edwardian Britain”, Visual Culture in Britain, 21/3, p. 333-4.

[31] Mayhall, “Defining Militancy”, p. 348-9.

[32] Mayhall, “Defining Militancy”, p. 349.

[33] June Purvis, “Deeds Not Words’: The Daily Lives of Militant Suffragettes in Edwardian Britain”, Women’s Studies International Forum, 18/2 (1995), p. 92.

[34] Cowman, “Doing Something Silly”, p. 263.

[35] ‘Taking It Out On Hubby’ (c. 1908), Reliable Series, The Suffrage Postcard Project

[36] ‘Suffragists on The War Path’ (c.1907-1918), The Suffragette Series, The Suffrage Postcard Project

[37] Smith, Suffrage Campaign, p. 54.

[38] Lakesia D. Johnson, Iconic: Decoding images of The Revolutionary Black Woman (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2012), p. 2.

[39] Terrion L. Williamson, “From Blaxploitation to Black Macho: The Angry Black Woman comes of Age”, in Robert J. Patterson (ed.), Black Cultural Production after Civil Rights (Chicago: University of Illinois press, 2019), p. 187.

[40] Williamson “From Blaxploitation”, p. 185.

[41] Marcus, “Art and Anger”, p. 69.

[42] Ritu Prasad, (2018) “Serena Williams and the Trope of the ‘Angry Black Woman’’, BBC

[43] Brooklyn White (2018) “Hell Hath No Fury: The Importance of Black Women’s Rage in Music”, Bitch Media < https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/black-women-anger-music> [Accessed: 06 May, 2021].

[44] White, “Hell Hath”.

[45] Mohsin (2020) “Beyond Mammy, Jezebel & Sapphire: Reclaiming Images of Black Women”, The Museum < https://themuseum.org/past-exhibitions/beyond-mammy-jezebel-sapphire-reclaiming-images-of-black-women/> [Accessed: 06 May, 2021].

[46] Williamson, “From Blaxploitation”, p. 195.


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