The presentation is over, and ‘Jack’ is firmly back in his box.
Thank you to Carol, Ed and Cameron who were a pleasure to work with. Cameron did a brilliant job of the PowerPoint presentation, and his reading of the Ripper letter was to die for. Carol presented some fascinating information on the feminist perspective, and found the chilling quotation ‘Jack the Ripper is the founding father of the movement for the mutilation of a woman’s body, leaving her sex organs for display’. Carol kept us all calm and positive. Ed did a memorable comparison of the real victims and the media generated male fantasy versions. The group who presented after us did an excellent presentation and covered completely different aspects to us. It just goes to illustrate ‘Jack’s’ malleability. Coville and Luciano in Jack the Ripper: His Life and Crimes in Popular Entertainment note that the heinous crimes, coupled with the Ripper’s phantom-like anonymity, have transformed an ‘ordinary yet resourceful criminal into a mythic representation’. The ripper industry took off after the Whitechapel murders and continued diversifying with developments in media technology, because the Ripper is ‘a pervasive representation of ancient evil’.
The module has been enormous fun. We learnt a lot, and enjoyed ourselves at the same time.
Dr. Pawlett’s question threw us all at the end, and typically, we all managed to think of sensible things to say once the presentation was over.
Yes I think misogyny is still around in our society, despite the fact that women have more rights and independence than ‘Jack’s’ Victorian counterparts. Women are still presented as sex objects in the media. Serial killers continue to shock us in the news. Christmas is coming and many women will face a miserable time at the hands of their violent partners. The Taliban continue to deprive their women of basic human rights.
I saw a worrying article in the Guardian by Jessica Mann (an author who reviews crime fiction). She notes that the novels she is being sent to review feature male perpetrators and female victims in situations of increasingly graphic sadistic misogyny. When she complained, a publisher told her ‘Dead brutalised women sell books, dead men don’t. Nor do dead children or geriatrics’. Mann noted that the most disturbing plots were by female authors. Mann believes that because women writers feel that they are less important than men, they are resorting to graphic violence to prove they are not girly. She feels that there has been a general desensitisation towards violence amongst readers.
Mann’s comments worry me because it indicates a trend for women writers to collude with misogynistic fantasies and condone the representation of women as helpless victims.
Do a lot of women feel the same? If so, then surely these women writers are sending an even stronger message to the future Rippers in society, and men in general, that women secretly want to be brutalised. Never mind Jack being ‘Down on Whores’ – it looks like women are down on themselves as well.
Thank you to Carol, Ed and Cameron who were a pleasure to work with. Cameron did a brilliant job of the PowerPoint presentation, and his reading of the Ripper letter was to die for. Carol presented some fascinating information on the feminist perspective, and found the chilling quotation ‘Jack the Ripper is the founding father of the movement for the mutilation of a woman’s body, leaving her sex organs for display’. Carol kept us all calm and positive. Ed did a memorable comparison of the real victims and the media generated male fantasy versions. The group who presented after us did an excellent presentation and covered completely different aspects to us. It just goes to illustrate ‘Jack’s’ malleability. Coville and Luciano in Jack the Ripper: His Life and Crimes in Popular Entertainment note that the heinous crimes, coupled with the Ripper’s phantom-like anonymity, have transformed an ‘ordinary yet resourceful criminal into a mythic representation’. The ripper industry took off after the Whitechapel murders and continued diversifying with developments in media technology, because the Ripper is ‘a pervasive representation of ancient evil’.
The module has been enormous fun. We learnt a lot, and enjoyed ourselves at the same time.
Dr. Pawlett’s question threw us all at the end, and typically, we all managed to think of sensible things to say once the presentation was over.
Yes I think misogyny is still around in our society, despite the fact that women have more rights and independence than ‘Jack’s’ Victorian counterparts. Women are still presented as sex objects in the media. Serial killers continue to shock us in the news. Christmas is coming and many women will face a miserable time at the hands of their violent partners. The Taliban continue to deprive their women of basic human rights.
I saw a worrying article in the Guardian by Jessica Mann (an author who reviews crime fiction). She notes that the novels she is being sent to review feature male perpetrators and female victims in situations of increasingly graphic sadistic misogyny. When she complained, a publisher told her ‘Dead brutalised women sell books, dead men don’t. Nor do dead children or geriatrics’. Mann noted that the most disturbing plots were by female authors. Mann believes that because women writers feel that they are less important than men, they are resorting to graphic violence to prove they are not girly. She feels that there has been a general desensitisation towards violence amongst readers.
Mann’s comments worry me because it indicates a trend for women writers to collude with misogynistic fantasies and condone the representation of women as helpless victims.
Do a lot of women feel the same? If so, then surely these women writers are sending an even stronger message to the future Rippers in society, and men in general, that women secretly want to be brutalised. Never mind Jack being ‘Down on Whores’ – it looks like women are down on themselves as well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/25/jessica-mann-crime-novels-anti-women
Gary Coville and Patrick Lucianio, Jack the Ripper: His Life and crimes in Popular Entertainment, (London: McFarland & Company Inc, 1999), p. 9
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