Male Fantasy, Violent Women, and the Book of Esther
Esther - Kristin Joachimsen
Laura Quick [+]
University of Oxford
Description
The study of violence in biblical literature has gained increasing traction in recent years. In particular, a number of monographs and edited volumes have considered the dual topics of violence and women. These studies treat the female characters of biblical literature as victims of violence—and certainly, the Hebrew Bible contains many instances of physical and sexual violence against women, including rape, murder, and mutilation. What has been less often acknowledged is that biblical literature in fact also frequently presents women as the agents of violence. In this article, I consider the portrayal of Esther as an agent of violence. Although it is women who are more typically endangered by men, the book of Esther and the wider presentation of violent women found in the Hebrew Bible reverses this image. It is not women who must fear men, but rather men who must be hypervigilant against these dangerous women. These texts therefore promote an ideology in which women must be subject to male control, and this is harmful for both Esther as well as for women more generally in the world from which the book of Esther emerged. Consequently, the book of Esther presents its female protagonist as an agent of violence. But in so doing, Esther is also the victim of the patriarchal perspectives of the authors of the book of Esther and the ideology of gender in which they participate and promote.