- Title
- The Treatment of Culturally Dissonant Women: Ancient Rome and Online Contemporary Anglophone Culture
- Creator
- Laetsch, Kymme
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This thesis examines the treatment of women, particularly mature women whose behaviour is perceived to be culturally dissonant. It compares attitudes, behaviour and triggers using writing from two different cultures and from two very different periods: Ancient Rome and early twenty-first century Anglophone culture. Contemporary sources include participatory online culture, such as comments sections on social media as well as online versions of mainstream broadcast media such as newspapers and magazines as well as some online reportage of radio broadcasts. It examines these contemporary texts using a Classical lens in order to illuminate and gain possible insight into present-day (mostly) online misogynist invective. Both cultures constructed culturally specific parameters for masculinity and femininity with women and men expected to conform to these conventions. For women especially, these expectations are often impossible to fulfil. In both ancient Rome and the contemporary Anglophone West, written invective abuse is used routinely to admonish and “correct” women when their behaviour is perceived to be contrary to cultural expectations. The abuse employed against such culturally dissonant women in both cultures shows a remarkable correspondence in attitude, tone and content despite the temporal gulf of two millennia between them. The language and imagery in the contemporary polemic displays strong resonances with the ancient material. Often these outbursts are a response to unsanctioned female sexuality. In many instances, this is sexual activity outside of marriage for non-reproductive purposes. Another behaviour that commonly attracts opprobrium is when women venture into traditionally male arenas such as politics, law or science. Women who amass considerable political power are often labelled “witch” in both ancient Rome and in cyberspace and women who take younger lovers are seen as dangerous and predatory. Literacy rates were considerably lower in Roman times with only a small, elite, minority able to experience the Roman material first hand in printed form. Nonetheless, this invective abuse was an expression of conventional Roman culture and values and was published and preserved as such. In contrast, in the contemporary Anglophone West these behaviours and attitudes toward women are no longer openly espoused, but have flourished and proliferated in the relative anonymity of cyberspace. Despite the considerable changes in the legal and social status of women, and the fact that contemporary women now have the ability to speak back to this abuse, these attitudes and this type of treatment continues. Legal penalties and speaking back are both responses. That is they happen after the abusive behaviour has occurred rather than act to prevent it. Both sets of texts are full of hostility, graphic threats of sexualised violence, and merciless “humour”. They are brutal, predictable and decidedly malicious in intent and designed to coerce and cudgel culturally contentious women into compliance. By juxtaposing texts from such ostensibly disparate cultures and analysing them side-by-side, I have found parallels between the invective aimed at Roman women like the poet Horace’s Lyce and Messalina and the abuse and threats aimed at contemporary celebrities such as Madonna and Hillary Clinton.
- Subject
- Rome; invective; feminism; abuse; trolling
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1510924
- Identifier
- uon:56459
- Rights
- Copyright 2022 Kymme Laetsch
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 195 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |