This week’s reading on Vaugh Scibner’s Merpeople has made me realize how long the myth of merpeople already exists. Having known basically nothing, I would have never thought that the history of mermaids and mermen has deep roots in the Christian Church, with merpeople characterizing “hybridity, contradiction and power struggles” (Scribner, p.29). In medieval churches, mermaid sculptures were often used for decorative purposes. It is grotesk to believe that churches put mermaid sculptures into their holy halls, even though they were afraid of mermaids having a sinful creature and being dangerous to men. That leads me to another aspect that puzzled me, which is the difference in how mermen and mermaids are perceived. When people nowadays think of mermaids, they have this image of a beautiful half-human and half-animal in mind, which has a feminine outward appearance with for example long beautiful hair, a pretty face, … just like Disney’s Ariel.
The question which arose to me was, whether mermaids in western cultures have always been presented in this way. After reading this week’s chapter. I came across the interesting fact that mermaids were first perceived as dangerous aquatic females who intend to bring men to death (cf. Scribner, p. 31). Apart from that, mermaids were not described as being beautiful, instead they were having “twelve feet […], and six necks […], and on each one an awful head” (Scribner, p. 31). Only a few centuries later the mermaids were repeatedly shown as “dangerous, passionate, sexual beings, with topless torsos” (Scribner, p.40). This image might also be the one that coined our current image of mermaids. Mermen in comparison were portrayed as being predominant (Scribner, p.34), as well as in religious self-control (Scribner, p.51). It would be interesting to get a little bit more knowledge on how this shift has happened.
Another topic worth a discussion is in how far mermaids are a figure of misogyny. Even though I think that everyone knows about misogyny I will still put a little definition into this post: Misogyny is the “hatred or prejudice against women, typically exhibited by men. It is generally accepted that misogyny is a consequence of patriarchy” (Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/misogyny). As mermaids are regarded as sexualized and sinful creatures in church, one could also argue that misogyny must be part of how we see mermaids now. It might be interesting to discuss in class, how women in general were degraded and seen at that time.
Great to read of your learning and surprise with just the first reading! And, you do a nice job incorporating quotations into your prose so that we can see exactly where in the text you are looking and what words, specifically, are prompting your interpretation. Good work!
Cool post Lina
I do like how you bring up that a lot of the old depictions of mermaids were indeed misogynistic. That’s probably a reflection on the sort of patriarchal authority way back in those days. But also, I don’t really recall seeing what mermaids do to women. I hope we get to see that in later readings
Hi Lina, I also wrote in post about how it was interesting to learn the history of how mermaids came to be such a sexualization of women and not so much in the history of mermen. In the book, it mentioned how men were often depicted with clothes on, often in a monk’s robe while women were often illustrated with little to no clothing and just their bottom half covered.
Hi Lina! I loved that you touched on the misogyny present in early depictions of mermaids. I also found it interesting to learn how mermaids were seen as a danger to men. I agree that this is even more shocking considering the way mermen were perceived. The book explains that mermen were perceived as devoted to God and, as you mentioned, able to maintain great self-control. I agree that this difference is interesting and a reflection of how women at that time were treated.