Silent women, denial of emotion and historical-legal continuity of the institutionalized violence against women

Abstract

Since classical times, history has been written predominantly by victors and, in a world that continues to be dominated by military and political power struggles, both women and feelings (including those of men) remain repressed. Women were frequently denied formal legal capacity and excluded from administrative decision-making, and over time this institutionalised gender bias (imbecilitas sexus and levitas animi) served to reinforce more comprehensive emotional, legal and economic discrimination against women. Moreover, entrenched patriarchal attitudes meant that adult women were invariably treated as if they were either minors or mentally handicapped and, consequently, physical and psychological abuse against women became normalised. This article seeks to expose how modern legislation reflects and reinforces historic discrimination, both social and legal, against women. Drawing upon interdisciplinary gender studies that apply diverse and novel methodologies, the aim of this analysis is to give voice to “silent women” and so challenge the idealised stereotypical notion of what it means to be “perfectly feminine”. Through deploying a diachronic comparative method, a range of social and legal sources are investigated to illustrate how women’s voices were effectively silenced, and with significant consequences for the present. Here it is offered an account of how female subordination occurred incrementally and in three distinct phases: first, women were classified as inferior beings, both legally and socially, and therefore compelled to remain silent; second, women were taught to accept their inferior status with both joy and satisfaction; and third, when necessary violence was used to silence female resistance.