Arenal. Revista de historia de las mujeres

Noticias Arenal

Autoras/es varias/os — 2025-06-10

“I want to make love to you. I want to kiss you”. Rape in the divine realm in Sumerian literature

Claudia Andreina D'amico Monascal — 2025-06-10

Three Sumerian texts, Enki and Ninhursag, Enlil and Ninlin, Inanna and Šukaletuda, deal with what it seems to be different cases of rape or non-consensual sexual relationship starred by divinities. Given the fundamental role that religion plays in the process of identity construction, this analysis aims to offer a reading of these stories focused on the female characters. Thus, it will be possible to offer a reflection on the definition of the feminine and themechanisms that underlie the representation of the bodies and the agency of women in the sexual and religious discourses of the ancient Near East.

Urraca I of León in Segunda Leyenda de Ávila. Text, context and history

Ángel Gabriel Gordo Molina — 2025-06-10

Among the different characters that take part in the events described in La Segunda Leyenda de Ávila, it becomes interesting to study the way that Doña Urraca de León is represented. The Urraqueñan figure is portrayed with nuances typical of the eleventh century, but specially from the influence of the fourteenth century source and its faithful and final copy in the seventeenth century. In this study we delve into the elements of the text, context and history recorded or omitted in the different versions of La Segunda Leyenda de Ávila.

An approximation to the family path of “Queen’s private lady-in-waiting”, Maria Sidonia Riederer von Paar, at the service of the Habsburgs

Emily Deelen Porta — 2025-06-10

Studying the Royal Houses as spaces of integration and sociability of the elites is offering infinite and interesting results. In our case we leave aside thetraditional analysis of Queen Margaret of Austria’s household as a scenario controlled solely by the king’s favorite, to focus on the figure of Maria Sidonia, as it becomes paradigmatic when it comes to delving into the capacity for social projection of foreign elites in the service of the Spanish Crown. Not ignoring her role within Margaret’s female agency, our research on Maria focuses on the benefits obtained by her on different levels, given it allows us to reflect on matters such as the existence of anobiliary network sensitive to Hispanic interests of a transnational nature, or on the strategies of the elites to perpetuate their positions in the service of the Hispanic Monarchy.

Frustrated aspirations. Mission and martyrdom in Mariana de Jesús (1618-1645)

Fabio Giovanni Locatelli — 2025-06-10

The objective of this article is to analyze the missionary aspirations of Mariana de Jesús (1618- 1645) from Quito. It is based on the funeral sermon that theJesuit father Alonso de Rojas pronounced in honor of Mariana, published in 1646; in the testimonies of the informative process carried out since 1670; and in the saint´s hagiography authored by Father Morán de Butrón, published in 1724. Mariana knew models of holiness, martyrdom and mission, which she tried to put into practice, without success. Her adoptive parents, in order to preserve the good reputation of the family, had to take severe measures. Mariana was confined in the house, until the date of her death, under the control of the Jesuit fathers. The case shows that the young woman, under the influence of the Society of Jesus,interpreted the Catholic religion in a radical way. However, her family opposed and ended up confining her into the domestic space.

“To lead women on the true path of their duties”. Cecilia Grierson and female technical education in early 20th century in Argentina

María Belén Trejo — 2025-06-10

This paper analyzes Cecilia Grierson’s contributions to the field of domestic education starting on two events that involved her: the report she preparedabout her study trip in Europe (1899-1900) and the experience of Technical School for the Homekeeping in Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 20th century. The female education model promoted by her fits into a series of concerns shared by pedagogues, feminist, university graduates, charitable societies and intellectuals. In that social and political context, there is a shared concern to improve health conditions of the population in general, reduce infant mortality andexpand a model of salaried work based on female domesticity. Grierson’s strategy focuses on the role of women in daily life reproduction: supporting the domestic role and their responsibility in taking care of the family nucleus.

Beyond Sicalipsis: The Complaints of Gender Violence, Sexual Violence and Pederasty through the Cuplé

Lidia Cachinero-Rodríguez — 2025-06-10

The different kinds of violence against women have been the target of feminist claims throug- hout history. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, Spanish female popular singer used the music-halls, cabarets and theatres in order to visibilise gender violence, sexual violence and pederasty throughsongs which were recorded and transmitted by oral tradition. Through an analysis of a variety of cuplés, this paper shows to what extent gender violence wasstandardized and how the cuplé became an ally to the feminist movement, which brought important changes in gender laws during the Second Republic in Spain.

Prostitutes and vagrants in Spanish and Portuguese prisons during the 20th century. A journey from Madrid to Lisboa

Fernando Hernández Holgado — 2025-06-10

The following work consists of a brief historical review of the experience of women imprisoned for common crimes throughout 19th and 20th century in Spain and Portugal and, more specifically, of women arrested for clandestine prostitution and vagrancy. About that, the article analyzes with special care the prisons of their respective capitals, Madrid and Lisbon, during the first half of the 20th century. In the Spanish case, the article focuses particularly on the Quiñones, Ventas andAlcalá de Henares prisons, while in the Portuguese case it deals mainly with the Lisbon prison of Mónicas, with some reference to the nearby Tires prison, in Cascais. This text aims to cast some light on a reality that, up to now, has constituted a “blind spot” of History.

The empowerment of Babylonian women. A forgotten author and three haute divulgation books as a case study

Agnés García Ventura — 2025-06-10

In this paper are discussed some aspects of the reception of ancient Babylonian women (ca. 2000-1500 BCE) as empowered women at the end of the 19thcentury and the beginning of the 20th century CE. To do so, here are taken as a case study three volumes from the collection “By-Paths of Bible Knowledge”,namely the ones written by Margaret Elise Harkness (1854-1923), Archibald Henry Sayce (1846-1933), and Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge (1857-1934), published in 1883, 1885, and 1925 respectively, and devoted to Assyria or toBabylonia. Furthermore, with this choice Harkness, the author of one of the volumes to whom little attention has been paid so far, is vindicated as an authorspecialising in haute divulgation, and as a good connoisseur of studies of her time dealing with ancient Mesopotamia.

Jezebel as a female countermodel origins and reception

Mireia López-Bertran — 2025-06-10

This paper aims to analyze the construction of Jezebel as a counter-model of the female ideal for Judeo-Christian culture using an interdisciplinarymethodology based on reception studies of the Bible with a gender perspective, as well as an analysis of the visual culture from a cultural history perspective. To this end, a thorough analysis of the primary source, the Old Testament, will first be conducted in order to comment on the passages that explain the life of the Phoenician princess. Secondly, a brief overview of the reception of the biblical passages will be provided, both in some Judeo-Christian written sources of different chronologies and in Western visual culture. Next, two films will be analyzed in detail: “Jezebel,” directed by William Wyler in 1938, and “The Sins of Jezebel,” directed by Reginald Le Borg in 1953. Both will serve to highlight how the character of Jezebel has become an archetype of a highly sexualizedwoman who uses her beauty to conquer men. Finally, it is emphasized how the sexualization of Jezebel is the result of an incorrect interpretation of the term prostitute, and a call is made for a change in the current reception of the princess, in which it is desirable to portray her in her political and cultural role in the court of Samaria.

Bianca Laura Saibante and the use of Semiramis. A case study on the reception of Antiquity in the Italian debates on women in the eighteenth century

Michaela Oberhuber — 2025-06-10

For centuries, the use of exempla of ancient women accompanied the discussion of the Querelle des femmes. At times, this practice has been seen as a purely static reproduction of the same topoi, and its innovative power and originality have been strongly relativized. This article aims to test this thesis by analysing the case study of the Italian writer Bianca Laura Saibante (1723-1797), paying attention to nuances and details in her depiction of ancient women. To this end, theanalysis focuses on one of a number of ancient women Saibante included in her writings on the female question, namely the Babylonian ruler Semiramis. Mainfocuses are the narrative elements of Semiramis’ life that she highlighted, and the way she functionalized them. Comparison with other representations of the Babylonian queen in writings from a broad context relevant to Saibante serves to identify “small differences” and particularities in her Semiramis’ treatment, showing the dynamic character of the reception of Antiquity and its functionalisation for contemporary gender debates.

The discursive construction of gender in textbooks: the case of Prehistory of the Northwestern Iberian Peninsula

Andrea Mouriño Schick — 2025-06-10

In this paper, we propose to address the discursive production of the prehistoric past in formal education from a critical, reflexive and feminist perspective within the conceptual framework of Public Archaeology. The aim is to identify the prevailing discursive patterns and trends, both in their textual and visual aspects, taking into account the territorial peculiarities of the northwest of the peninsula and its social dimension, with particular emphasis on the configuration of the image of women. The study applies a systematic methodology based on the analytical strategies and tools of Critical Discourse Studies to analyse Galician school textbooks published between 1980 to 2020. The results reveal how sexisms and gender stereotypes are the protagonists that project the contemporary asymmetrical gender order and its rationality into the prehistoric past, where femininity is constructed through otherness.

‘The Lord walks among the pots and pans’: Food, Domestic Religiosity, and Women’s Agency between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period

Marcos García García — 2025-06-10