Before I launch into my review, I feel that I need to say that I’ve got to know the author of this book, Kyra Cornelius Kramer, really well over the past few years and I liked her writing style so much that I asked her to be a regular contributor to Tudor Life magazine. There, full disclosure! Having said that, I’m honest with my reviews.
I took The Jezebel Effect: Why the sl*t Shaming of Famous Queens Still Matters on holiday with me recently to read on the plane. As someone who spends my time writing about Tudor history, I was particularly interested in the sections on Anne Boleyn, Mary Boleyn and Catherine Howard and thought I might just speed read or skim over the sections on women who didn’t appeal to me in the same way. Well, my plan to speed read didn’t quite work out. Kyra’s accounts of these women, her explanation of historical propaganda that is still effecting how we perceive these women today, and her reference to modern cases of ‘sl*t-shaming’ and the damage it has done – even leading to young girls committing suicide – drew me in and before I knew it I was reading every word.
Kyra is an academic and an anthropologist, but although her writing is academic in that it is well-researched and referenced, it is far from dry. It could be a heavy subject and there are some heart-rending modern stories in the book, but Kyra’s little sarcastic asides inject some humour into the book and I loved that.
Her section on Anne Boleyn was excellent. I’m always thinking that Anne was ‘damned if she did and damned if she didn’t’ regarding her relationship with Henry VIII. I quite often receive comments on my blog and Facebook page calling Anne a wh*re and home wrecker, or, on the other hand, a woman who manipulated Henry by holding out on him. Kyra writes:
“On one hand, Anne Boleyn was a nasty vamp if she had sex with the men who wanted her. On the other hand, Anne Boleyn was a cold-hearted prick tease and manipulator if she didn’t have sex with the men she charmed. Simply by being desired, Anne is placed in a no-win situation. Men desired Anne Boleyn but could not have her and she has been punished for it ever since.”
“Exactly!”, I almost cried out on the plane.
Kyra goes on to talk about how even Anne’s failure to reply to Henry VIII’s love letters to her has been seen by some historians as a ploy to “increase his ardour” because Anne knew that Henry just couldn’t give her up. Face palm, head bang… Couldn’t Anne have just been trying to show Henry she wasn’t interested?
As I read this book I felt a solidarity with Kyra, I felt that we were both doing face-palms at the same time with how these women’s actions (or lack of action) have been interpreted.
Anne Boleyn is, of course, not the only woman to be looked at in this book. Kyra also examines the stories and treatment of Jezebel, Cleopatra, Mary Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Catherine the Great, along with examples of how women are still sl*t-shamed by society today. It is a provocative book. It makes you question what you were taught in history classes, it makes you think about how your children are being educated and the mixed messages that society gives them, it makes you want to get on your soap box!
I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I found myself nodding as I read it, getting angry about the treatment of these women and girls, and reading parts out to my husband. It made me interact with it and it made impression on me, and that’s the sign of a very good book in my opinion.
Book Details
Have you heard that Catherine the Great died having sex with her horse? Or perhaps you prefer the story that Anne Boleyn had six fingers and slept with her brother? Or that Katheryn Howard slept with so many members of the Tudor court that they couldn’t keep track of them all? As juicy and titillating as the tales might be, they are all, patently untrue.
Modern PR firms may claim that no publicity is bad publicity, but that, too, is untrue. The fact that Cleopatra is better known for her seductions than her statecraft, and that Jezebel is remembered as a painted trollop rather than a faithful wife and religiously devout queen, isn’t a way for historians to keep these interesting women in the public eye, rather it’s a subversion of their power, a re-writing of history to belittle and shame these powerful figures, preventing them from becoming icons of feminine strength and capability.
sl*t shaming has its roots in our earliest history, but it continues to flourish in our supposedly post-feminist, equal-rights world. It is used to punish women for transgressions against gender norms, threatening the security of their place in society and warning that they’d better be “good girls” and not rock the patriarchal boat, or they, too could end up with people believing they’ve slept with everything from farm animals to relatives.
This is The Jezebel Effect.
Paperback: 412 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (March 12, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1508666113
ISBN-13: 978-1508666110
ASIN: B00U2NXG6K (This is my affiliate link for Amazon.com and I may receive a small payment if you buy the book through this link).
Kindle File size: 2886 KB
Available from Amazon.com, Amazon UK and other book retailers.
Originally posted on April 16, 2015.
Women when it comes to sex has always had it tough, ever since Eve tempted Adam with the apple we have been branded tarts loose immoral, and driven by wanton lusts ruining good men with our sexual allure….. I agree entirely with Kyra Anne was put in a really impossible situation regarding Henry V111, just because she did not want to become his mistress she was blamed with him casting of Katherine, just because she accepted marriage which after all is a legal binding contract between a man and a woman, she was vilified for splitting up a family, yet as a woman she had the RIGHT to refuse to sleep with the king as is every woman’s right and has been throughout the ages, she did not want the king to fall in love with her, she fled to Hever time and again to escape his unwanted and overwhelming affection, she hoped he would cast his eye on another more willing body, but it was not to be, she was the one he wanted, and Anne could see she could have no other, no man would ever be allowed to marry her, she was trapped in the headlight of the kings love as surely as he by his obsession of her, what could any woman do? Eventually he wore her down, she was ambitious her old love Harry Percy was lost to her he married someone else, she was interested in reform she could see here she had the chance to introduce the new religion to England, and she could enhance her families fortunes she could be the mother of the new King of England, she knew her only path would be to accept the king and in doing so she was branded an evil corrupt woman, in the case of her flighty younger cousin, Catherine Howard too has had her character besmirched because her upbringing was not as moral as the lady borne to a great household should have been, but she was the child here in need of guidance and her name was only ever linked with her music master and later a master Francis Derham, with Manox it appears to have been just a light hearted flirtation, with Derham a full blown affair but one could hardly have accused her of sleeping through all of the duchess’s household, the infatuation she had later for Culpeper was very real and I believe she did love, or believe she loved him, we can consider the case of centuries before the queen of Henry 11, Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine who herself was described as immoral, a woman who was said to have slept with her own uncle, yet her husband was notoriously unfaithful with several bastards to prove it, it seems a woman only has to sleep with one man to be branded a sl*t, yet a man is applauded for having as many notches on his bedpost as possible, Anne Boleyn lost her head really because she set great store on her virtue and Catherine Howard because according to the standards of the day, she set so little by hers, she is the queen who played the old king at his own game, none of his other wives would ever have considered being unfaithful but the Henry whom his first two wives had known was long gone, with his fifth queen he was old and repulsive to her, sadly he was faithful to his child bride but she being thirty years his junior thought she could have her cake and eat it, that does not make Catherine Howard a wh*re, silly yes reckless undoubtedly but her youth excuses her extreme ignorance, the sexualisation of these queens overrides their virtues, Anne was deeply pious cultured learned and really was the perfect consort to Henry V111 and his renaissance court, yet she is known more for being the wh*re who was beheaded for sleeping with five men allegedly and one her own brother, Catherine tried to be a good queen also, she was at the kings side when he went on progress she tried to help those less fortunate than herself, her life was not an endless path of gaiety, Duchess Eleanor was an extremely important woman in her own right, she inherited her fathers Duchy when a young woman and also was considered very cultured beautiful and brave to, yet when first her name is mentioned, an image of a hungry blood lust queen is conjured up who set her warring sons on her beleaguered husband, Isabella of France to, branded the she wolf was betrayed by her effeminate husband whom she had supported and loved in the early days of her marriage, she was deserted by him time and again as he spent his days with his favourite Piers Galveston and was treated dreadfully by his second favourite, Hugh Despencer, her actions afterwards are perfectly understandable yet because she was a woman the nurturer, she was supposed to be meek and pliant and endure any abuse that was thrown at her, she is forever branded the she wolf yet it was her husband the weak ineffectual Edward 11 who behaviour made her the woman she was, I cannot really comment on Cleopatra but I know she was an extremely intelligent woman from the Ptolemy ruling family who could speak many languages, she was queen of a powerful ancient civilisation and became lover of first Julius Caesar then Mark Antony, in her countries best interests of course, she is this legendary woman who is famed for her beauty and rather sharp nose but that did not seem to bother both Caesar nor her successor in her affections, when I first learnt about her it was through her affair with both Romans, obviously her intelligence and ability to rule took second place, but was she a sl*t simply because she used her feminine wiles to help her country? As we have seen there are different standards for men and women.