Throughout Europe and America, artists and intellectuals banded together to portray women as static and unindividuated beings who functioned solely in a sexual and reproductive capacity, thus formulating many of the anti-feminine platitudes that today still constrain women's potential.īram Dijkstra's Idols of Perversity explores the nature and development of turn-of-the-century misogyny in the works of hundreds of writers, artists, and scientists, including Zola, Strindberg, Wedekind, Henry James, Rossetti, Renoir, Moreau, Klimt, Darwin, and Spencer. 2.11 Gold and the Virgin Whores of Babylon Judith and Salome: The Priestesses of Man's Severed HeadĪt the turn of the century, an unprecedented attack on women erupted in virtually every aspect of culture: literary, artistic, scientific, and philosophic.2.10 Metamorphoses of the Vampire Dracula and His Daughters.2.9 Gynanders and Genetics Connoisseurs of Bestiality and Serpentine Delights Leda, Circe, and the Cold Caresses of the Sphinx.2.8 Poison Flowers Maenads of the Decadence and the Torrid Wail of the Sirens.2.7 Clinging Vines and the Dangers of Degeneration.2.6 Evolution and the Brain:Extinguished Eyes and the Call of the Child Homosexuality and the Dream of Male Transcendence.2.5 Women of Moonlight and Wax the Mirror of Venus and the Lesbian Glass.2.4 The Weightless Woman the Nymph with the Broken Back and the Mythology of Therapeutic Rape.2.3 The Collapsing Woman: Solitary Vice and Restful Detumescence.

2.2 The Cult of Invalidism Ophelia and Folly Dead Ladies and the Fetish of Sleep.2.1 Raptures of Submission: the Shopkeeper's Soul Keeper and the Cult of the Household Nun.

Idols of Perversity by Bram Dijkstra