Naked, but Hairy: Women and Misogyny in Fin de Siècle Representations

At the end of the 19th century, women are everywhere: in painting, in literature, in decorative art but there is a notable difference from other periods in that they are an obsessive presence, well documented in Mireille Dottin-Orsini’s book, Cette femme qu’ils disent fatale (This Woman They Call Fatal). Never has there been such an obsession about the feminine, attested in medical works, essays in scientific psychology, treatises on moral philosophy. Rather than calling it an obsession with the feminine, we should speak of a “nightmare of the feminine,” since it is a succession of devil-worshipping witches, a parade that includes Salome, Heriodias, Judith, Delilah, Messalina, Medea, without forgetting the various Omphales, Cleopatras, Queens of Sheba and Helens of Troy, who all used their malevolent powers to destroy men. Myths, legends, and religious history all provide numerous figures to embody the fantasy of the fear of the feminine. Indeed, women are omnipresent in these representations, but mostly incarnated as a sex that fascinates and terrifies, attracts and repulses, worries, upsets and disturbs. The danger is expressed everywhere, a silent attractor impelling men toward its dark maw.