The Internalized Misogyny and Male Gaze of Lady Montagu

By: Liliana Silva-Vazquez

As I examine this painting and revisit Lady Montagu’s 27th letter, I see many parallels between the internalized male gaze, the explicit/implicit misogyny people hold, and the danger of seeing a particular event through a male-dominated lens. With that, I think Lady Montagu has a conflicted point of view because of her internalized misogyny and her radical ideas on how free the Ottoman Muslim women are compared to English women. 

The first thing I noted as I looked at the painting was the overexaggerated male gaze. The women are lounging in very dramatic ways that seem to emphasize their lustful appearances with every twist and turn of their bodies. Their faces are either completely hidden like the woman who has her back turned to us or only show their side profiles so that our focus is on their bodies and not their faces. This contributes to the objectification of women and Lady Montagu had a similar view when she stated, “the truth of a reflection I had often made, that if it was the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed” (102). Here we can see how she contributes to the objectification of women’s bodies. She also comments even further on the ridiculous beauty standards of women when she says, “I perceived that the ladies with the finest skins and most delicate shapes had the greatest share of my admiration, though their faces were sometimes less beautiful than those of their companions” (102). In this section, she not only reveals her internalized male gaze but also her internal misogyny that taught her to value beauty over everything. This is especially important to note because, in England, the men did not want to see the silhouettes of their women either so a “pretty” face was highly valued and sought after and just the thought of a group of naked women together calls for a burning. So, I do not see any women in the painting looking “natural,” they are all dramatized and even pictured holding one another intimately which contributes to the fantasized male accounts of these bathhouses. The lighting was also very telling of what the painter may have been thinking as it is very dark when in reality, Lady Montagu said, “with no windows but in the roof, which gives light enough” (101). This darker shading could signify the “seductive,” “lustful,” or even “shameful” views of the bathhouse because having a group of women in a secluded space means there must be some sort of sexual tension or experiences within from a male-centered POV. 

In conclusion, everyone can have the male gaze internalized as well as implicit/explicit misogyny, but depending on the person’s will to change, their views may just be complicated and not absolute. Even though there is an obvious danger in seeing everything through a male-dominated lens, change does not happen overnight; it is up to us to create more meaningful paintings of feminine entities and to tell the truth through our stories as Lady Montagu has attempted. 

A View of a Turkish Bathhouse Through the Eyes of Opposite Sexes

Luis Arceo

I believe the painting by Ingres of a Turkish bathhouse based on the account of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is somewhat accurate to what was described. In her account of the bathhouse Montagu describes some 200 women and the painting does show that, though it may not be 200 it’s still enough to get the point across. As for the women they are just as Montagu describes them, “many amongst them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess…skins shiningly white…and the most delicate shapes.” (p.102) They look like women Renaissance artists may have drawn is how she describes them. From here this is where I believe the comparisons between the two end. Once one takes time to compare and contrast the two, notable differences begin to emerge.

One of these differences is how this bathhouse is suppose to be made of marble. In her account of describing the rooms Montagu cannot stop talking about all the marble around her, like in the room, “The…room is a very large one, paved of marble,” to the sofas, “two sofas of marble, one above another,” to fountains that have marble basins, “There were four fountains of cold water…falling into marble basins.”(p.101) Clearly Ingres decided to make the focus of the painting on the women rather than the marble filled bathhouse. The women are given a nymph likeness to them as Montagu alludes to, but the addition of making some women play instruments by Ingres furthers this connection giving them more of a majestic and an erotic attribute to them, helping the viewer conceptualize the bathhouse better, at the cost of accuracy. If it were not labeled as a bathhouse I find it hard to believe anyone would describe it as one since it doesn’t look like one. Though I’ve never been to a bathhouse I’d hamper to bet that there would be water and steam filling up the room, like Montagu describes seeing in the rooms, “The two other domes [with] the hot baths,” (p.101) but rather this looks like the women are at some Roman villa partying and lounging about instead. 

Reconstruction of Greece: Poetic Justice

Lord Byron’s The Giaour demonstrates the ideal of a collapsing Greek empire. There are many explicit references to ancient Greece, “‘Tis Greece- but living Greece no more!” (Byron 91), as well as an implicit reference to the modern Greece, “Approach thou craven crouching slave- Say, is not this Termopylae?” (Byron 108-109). The speaker here refers to what seems like a Turkish slave wandering the same mountain that was in antiquity the site to the battle between King Leonidas’ alliance of Greek city-states and Xerxes of the Persian Empire. The speaker of The Giaour thus creates the poetic reconstruction of Greece within the Hellenistic perspective.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a British, ex-diplomat’s, aristocratic wife is herself the innovator of the very Hellenistic perspective held by Lord Byron’s speaker in The Giaour. In The Turkish Embassy Letters, after hand-copying the Latin inscriptions from the castle pedestals, she gleans over the modern day use of the architecture- “Here are many tombs of fine marble, and vast pieces of granite,” (Montagu 187); however, she then proceeds to insult the Turks for their cheapening of the “fine marble” tombs, “…which are daily lessened by the prodigious balls that the Turks make from them for the cannon,” (Montagu 187). Lady Mary does not simply discriminate against the Turks for daring to live in the same geographic location as these once-glorious sites, but also she characterizes the new occupants as being savage-like, warmongers that make weapons out of these sacred artifacts. It is at this point that the reader’s understanding of Hellenism becomes conflicted by the fact that the figures involved with poetically reconstructing Greece-as-source-of-culture themselves were troubled by the mere sight of slaves, in the dirt, languidly obstructing the richness of the land.

The irony of both Lord Byron and Lady Mary’s perspectives serves to underplay the overwhelming classism that imbues the Hellenistic construction of Greece. The Giaour‘s speaker portrays a “loveliness in death,” (Byron 97) because in his imagination, limited by the bias of the times, there is no loveliness in the geography preserved by the Turks actually living in Greece. Lady Mary stirs a poetic justice by hand-scribing the Latin inscriptions off the pillars and romanticizing the ancient Greek monuments and vistas described by Homer himself, and yet refuses to recognize those who are there, physically living- the Turks, without describing the women’s garbs (Montagu 184) or proceeding to call the peasants “baboons,” (Montagu 193). Both writers are symbols for a Hellenistic movement that exists despite the inconsistencies of perceived beauty and the works’ poetic reliance on nostalgic classicism. The only thing missing in the texts is a foreword by each author that explicitly confesses their own, double-overdetermination in reinvigorating the Grecian ideal.

 

Power and Female Reproduction

In response to hpga26’s, “Lady Mary’s Obsession with Power,” I found the writers connection with sexuality and reproduction with power to be an idea worth exploring. Lady Mary spends a lot of time focusing on the role of reproduction and sexuality in the Ottoman Empire. At one point she makes the comment, “…but in this country, ‘tis to more despicable to be married and not fruitful than ‘tis with us to be fruitful before marriage.” (151) Which is basically saying that in the Ottoman Empire it was more disgraceful for a woman to be fertile and not bear children than it was taboo or disgraceful in England to have a child out of wedlock. In this culture, a woman’s value was calculated on her ability to produce offspring. In the quote, “They have a notion that whenever a woman leaves off bringing children ‘tis because she is too old for that business, whatever her face says to the contrary, and this opinion makes the ladies here so ready to make proofs of their youth…” (151) She makes the connection of a woman’s ability to reproduce as a proof of their youth, and possibly even a measure of a woman’s value. Where in England, the goal of reproduction was to produce an heir, so numbers didn’t mean much, but in the Ottoman Empire, your ability to reproduce and provide offspring was equivalent to the amount of respect and power you had as a woman. I think the sheer quantity and numbers in which the women are able to reproduce, was also fascinating for Lady Mary. She says, “Without any exaggeration, all of the women of my acquaintance that have been married ten year have twelve or thirteen children, and the old ones boast of having five and twenty or thirty apiece, and are respected according to the number they have reproduced.” (152) However, I do disagree with hpga26, when they said that, Lady Mary doesn’t see the Muslim women’s roles as mothers as a limiting one, because it is limited, in this culture your ability to reproduce is a determining factor to the value of your worth. The Muslim women do know how to take advantage of their sexuality and sex, but those without the ability to produce offspring are definitely limited in that aspect.

Lady Mary: Sexuality and Reproduction

In response to hpga26 post “Lady Mary’s Obsession with Power”, I agree that Lady Mary is obsessed with power, but I would argue that although Lady Mary views Turkish women’s sexuality to be different (freer even) than that of the English women she finds it to be controlled by religion. The only instant in which I would note there to be an admiration of power is when Lady Mary talks about “those that like their liberty and are not slaves to their religion content themselves with marrying when they are afraid of dying” (144). Here, she admires those who do not use religion as a model to live their lives, for their bodies, sexuality and reproduction are in their hands and they are to reason with it anyway they want. Lady Mary being aristocrat women, who stole her own education is critiquing the role of women that is imposed on them by religion. Turkish women might be at more liberty with their sexuality and reproduction, but it is ultimately controlled by religion. As Lady Mary notes that they believe that “the end of the creation of woman is to increase and multiply, and is only properly employed in the works of her calling when she is bringing children or taking care of them, which are all the virtues that God expects from her” (144). Although they are not a slave to their husbands, they are a slave to their religion. When discussing the subject of remarriage, she explains how the husband can only take back his wife if she sleeps with another man because that is part of Turkish law explained in the Qur’an. Lady Mary is offering a deist perspective on how religions with holy text are the ones that limit women to certain roles that deny the possibility of sexual liberation.

Orientalism in the Account of Lady Mary: the Glory of Prostitution

In response to the September 18, 2013 post entitled “Symbiosis: Trading Children for a Life of Ease,” the student raised an issue about Lady Mary in Turkish Embassy Letters  in regard to her encounters with women in the “bright and mysterious Turkish landscape and society.”  The author claims that Lady Mary “deeply envies” the Turkish women’s status quo as “glorified” and “prostitutes.” Such a view indicates the transverse effect of Orientalism that ripples from Lady Mary’s marriage itself to the student blog post.

Lady Mary isn’t jealous or envious of Turkish women, but is decidedly biased. Lady Mary’s biography tells us of her bad-business marriage. This background thus informs us of Lady Mary’s outlook on society, on gender, and class. Lady Mary herself is affected in such a way by her husband’s elite status that she enters the conversation about women’s role in society and reflects in her own participation with and observations of the Turkish women an element of Orientalism.

If the student in 2013 is making the claim that Lady Mary herself is accusing the foreign women’s marriage practice as merely a glorified form of prostitution, then that student is now responsible for such implications. However, the post offers no further critique in exploring what the author believes is a European repulsion against Turkish gender norms. If the student is so quick to vindicate Lady Mary’s opinion against foreign women, then what explanation is there for the political, economic, and cultural fallout that entails such a derogatory outlook? The original question prompted the student to answer why Lady Mary “admires” the Turkish women, yet the student responded with an overwhelming disdain for Lady Mary’s contemptuous words. If we are unable to ascertain the truth about Lady Mary’s othering of the Turkish women, then how is the student able to assert the contradictory viewpoint that Lady Mary not only “deeply envies” the Turkish women but also “venerates the ease at which these wealthy women languish” without informing the reader of the significance of Lady Mary’s own discriminations?

Lady Montagu vs. Ingres: Representation of the Turkish Bathhouse

“Le Bain turc”, a visual image painted by French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, is seemingly a romanticized depiction of a common scene found in a Turkish woman’s bathhouse. In this particular image, there is a rather large group of nude women lounged around carelessly in the bathhouse. Despite the similarities, this image does not seem to mirror the picture that Lady Montagu paints with words of her own in her 27th written letter. Seemingly, with her experiences she offers an alternative atmosphere – for that is the apparent difference between Ingres’ painting and Lady Montagu’s experience in which we read about in her narrative The Turkish Embassy Letters.

In the visual representation of the scene by Ingres, some women are sitting and conversing with one another while others are lost in trances on their own. The atmosphere embodied is one of relaxation and calmness – almost romantic. This image is romanticized primarily due to the positions and poses held by each individual. One woman in the back has her arms thrown up in the air with her breasts jutted out, and posed gracefully as if performing in a ballet. Each individual holds such grace and present an image of what a female is supposed to appear as – soft and feminine, even seductive!

Lady Montagu’s account of her experience in the Turkish bathhouse depicts the women to hold such strength. “There was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture amongst them. They walked, and moved with the same majestic grace.” The narrator makes the comparison of the women to goddesses. And with the term ‘goddesses’ comes the heavy connotation of beauty and strength. There is no romanticism, nor seduction in the visual that Lady Montagu paints for her readers.

Something that does strike as an obvious similarity between the literature text and the panting is the pride that these women take in their lack in decency. Despite the romantic atmosphere found in Ingres’ painting, the lack of sexual tension is something to be found in both images used for comparison – moreso in Lady Montagu’s narrative than in the French painitng. Lady Montagu states that all women “all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed.” And in his painting, Ingres clearly offers a room of ‘stark naked’ women. It is apparent that the base for the painting may have certainly come from Lady Montagu’s narrative literature. Thus the painting and the written scene offer a lot to discuss for comparison purposes.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley (2012-09-20). The Turkish Embassy Letters (Kindle Location 1759). Broadview Press. Kindle Edition.

The Daughters of Eve

In reading Lady Mary Montagu’s letters, one can find two consistent subjects:  motherhood and the beauty of the women of the Ottoman Empire.  Using these two themes, Lady Mary advocates for a Biblical pre-fallen state that can be only achieved through motherhood, and she points to the Ottoman women as a model for this.  In letter 39, she demonstrates her own obsessions and self-identification with motherhood in the projection of her own preoccupation with the subject onto the women of the Orient.  In doing so, she creates and image of the Ottoman woman as a baby factory.  This image, however, has greater implications than hyper-sexualizing them.  It also characterizes the women as being pre-fallen because of their pride in childbearing.  This is brought to the reader’s attention in letter 27, a previously written text in which Lady Mary fixates her attentions on the naked bathhouse goers’ goddess-like figures.  In this description, she compares them to Milton’s portrayal of the General Mother, Eve, in Paradise Lost.  In doing so, she implies that the Ottoman women exist in a pre-fallen, holy and innocent state, like that of Eve before consuming the forbidden fruit.  It is important to note that she refers to Eve as the General Mother.  She could have just as easily referred to her as Eve, but instead, she deliberately calls her the General Mother.  While this is a common name for Eve, it is also important in relation to the author’s mother-identity.  In saying the Ottoman women are like the General Mother and therefore pre-fallen, she is implying that motherhood is what creates this ideal state.

The other two models presented are that of England and ancient Greece, but they, according to Lady Mary, are not ones to be followed.  The fact that the English women are not innocent and pure like the women of the Orient is first implied in letter 27.  Lady Mary, an Englishwoman, is awestruck by the women and their ability to walk around naked like Eve.  This, combined with the mentioning of pregnancy being shameful back home, contrasts with the image of the Ottoman women.  The English female is therefore fallen because she does not show pride in a mother-identity. The ancient Greek women are also fallen, but it is because they are dead.  In letter 45, she describes a Greek statue at a tomb that depicts a line of mothers offering their babies as offerings to a woman on a throne.  The fact that the children, representing motherhood, is an acceptable sacrifice illustrates the importance of motherhood as an identity in this culture.  However, because both the historical Greek women and the statues are not alive, their model is not one that can be followed or understood.  Therefore, with the rejection of both the English and Greek models and the admiration of the Ottoman, it is clear that Lady Mary believes one may only return to an Eve-like, pre-fallen state through the mother-identity of the Orient women, or at least the one she projects onto them.

Symbiosis: Trading Children for a Life of Ease

Lady Montagu deeply envies the Turkish women she encounters for two reasons. First, she covets the Turkish women’s ability, through the guise of their Turkish habits, to masquerade in public, free from the constraint of knowing eyes and able to satiate every sexual craving and sensibility with very little fear of retribution from their husbands. Secondly, she aspires to participate in a culture that ostensibly allows women to spend their time without worry for want or care, as long as they continuously produce offspring, “their whole time being spent in visiting, bathing or the agreeable amusement of spending money and inventing new fashions” (172). She venerates the ease with which these wealthy women languish and are able to enjoy the bright and mysterious Turkish landscape and society without the same dread of impropriety which prevails so in courtly London. To Lady Mary, getting married and having children seems a small price to pay for the legal and subsequently financial empowerment that comes with being a Turkish woman of quality. Here, I would argue that this exchanging of intercourse and child bearing for power is a glorified form of prostitution. Though in a world where women have little if no hope for autonomy, it seems a relatively advantageous business transaction. With every child, women are able to gain in authority over the men and satisfy their own maternal instinct simultaneously, while at the same time forever falling short of any feminist ideal by submitting to patriarchal notions of gender roles.