Epistemic Violence Against Women in Literature
There seems to be an ingrained bias in menfolk against women. They are socially and linguistically constructed and are negatively, unjustly and unreasonably commented on by the parochial and tendentious men. They are malevolently dubbed with negative lexemes, brutalised and criminalised with epistemic violence by the shallow, sadist, and prejudiced men of the so-called just society.
If woman is spared from physical torture and torment, epistemic violence (violence and infliction of harm against the subjects through discourse) is meted out to her in its stead. Violence of one kind or the other against woman has a very old and sordid history. We have plethora of literary works by male writers in which they have defined woman in a derisory and uncomplimentary way. Women have been verbally abused and slandered. Woman’s personality and character has been defined and dubbed through lexically denigrative terms and jaundiced metaphors.
Some have questioned her fealty and loyalty. Some have pictured her fickle and unreasonable with their camera obscura. Some have declared her brash and irrational. Ogden Nash – an American poet sweepingly comments in one of his poems, ‘women would rather be right than reasonable’. St.Thomas Aquinas cynically remarks, “Woman is an imperfect man.” Oscar Wilde satirically states in one of his famed plays, ‘A Woman of No Importance’ that women are fascinatingly wilful sex. Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself. Shakespeare in his reputed play ‘King Lear’ says that proper deformity seems not in the fiend as horrid as woman.’ In his another famous play, ‘Hamlet’, Shakespeare bluntly said that Frailty, thy name is woman. Friedrich Nietzsche unreasonably said that woman was God’s second mistake. Besides, he said that when a woman turns to scholarship there is usually something wrong with her sexual apparatus. Hegel, the greatest philosophers of the world writes that women regulate their actions not by the demands of universality, but by arbitrary inclinations and opinions. John Donne, who is notorious for his ill-treatment of women in his metaphysical poetry, has curtly said in his poem ‘Go and Catch a Falling Star’ that…And swear nowhere lives a woman true and fair…’
No doubt woman wants some virtues and principles, but the way male writers have written about this lack is a mere magnification and colouring. Male writers have become wont to gibe at woman and are sweetening their tasty buds by throwing expletives against her. According to Gayatri C. Spivak, the iconic poststructuralist feminist critic, “There is no virtue in global laundry lists with woman as a pious item”. It is an ill-will and chauvinistic bias of men that coerces them to comment in negative, debased and derogatory terms against women.
Woman has injudiciously been imprisoned in linguistically pejorative and dyslogistic words. It is pertinent to quote the famous French feminist critic, Simon de Beauvoir who says, “one is not born, but rather becomes a woman... it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature... which is described as feminine.”
The most inhuman and negative picture of woman has been created by Oscar Wilde in his novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. There is a female character to wit, Sibyl Vane- a talented actress and singer. Dorian Gray- a handsome and engaging laddie is in love with her head over ears but the biased, hollow and opinionated Lord Henry Wotton who espouses hedonistic and misogynistic views tries to create hatred and coldness in the heart of Dorian for Sibyl Vane by commenting negatively on women in general. Dorian tells him,’ she (Sibyl Vane) is a genius’. Lord Henry retorts by saying: My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.
Dorian gets surprised and becomes somewhat angry on hearing Lord Henry’s self-opinionated views against women. Dorian angrily tells him ‘Harry, how can you?’Lord Henry, trying to convince and to make him comply with his pontifical views patronizingly and cunningly tells him ‘My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at present, so I ought to know. The subject is not as abstruse as I thought it was. I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter she is perfectly satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can’t be admitted into decent society’.
In the course of the novel we see Lord Henry Wotton –the misogynist always speaking ill of women. This speaking ill against women is what Gayatri Spivak calls epistemic violence. While going through the novel we see women are a moot point between Dorian Gray and the cynic and sexist, Lord Henry. At one place in the novel Dorian Gray realistically tells Lord Henry Wotton, ‘You must admit, Harry that women give to men the very gold of their lives. ‘Lord Henry who is a sexist to a T, cynically and cunningly rebuts ‘possibly,’ ‘but they invariably want it back in such very small change. That is the worry. Women, as some witty Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always prevent us from carrying them out.’
Sibyl vane consumes poison and ends her life as Dorian kisses her off but on hearing the news of her death, he (Dorian) becomes melancholic and remorse struck. Lord Henry- dyed-in-the-wool sexist once again comes and begins to pontificate his parti pris views on women in order not to let Dorian sympathise with the fate of his lady-love .Wotton comments as: The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want the sixth act; as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over. They propose to continue it. If they were allowed their own way, every comedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in a farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of art.
By this biased and bitchy comment, Lord Henry proves himself to be a thorough going sexist. Why does Lord Henry Wotton diametrically mis-state women? Does he have any personal grudge and animosity against them? Actually Lord Henry is Oscar Wilde speaking in disguise. Oscar Wilde was a declared homosexual. Homosexuals being attracted to the same-sex are usually caustic and vitriolic in their remarks towards the opposite sex; moreover it is built-in instinct of men to scoff at women. Men like Lord Henry Wotton whose sole job is character assassination and casting of aspersions on the characters of the other people can’t help inventing their own slandering and calumnious tales about women. Women are victimised by epistemic violence and slighted by scalding and insinuating remarks.
From the above discussion, we find how the green-eyed men like Lord Henry Wotton, are always on the mission of inflicting women by slandering comments and defaming them with their dogmatic and self-fashioned theories and theses. Epistemic violence against women permeates in much of the literature written by men. Most of the literary works written by men covertly contain deprecating and derogatory stereotypes of women. ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ stands as an example. It downrightly makes negative commentary on women. By and large, writers like Oscar Wilde without any qualms of conscience and reason undervalue women with their self-fashioned and prejudiced opinions and by corollary unleash on women what Spivak calls ‘epistemic violence.’
Dr.Bilal Ahmad Dar is an English Lecturer.
