After reading sections of the Malleus Maleficarum describing why women were more likely to be witches because of their inherent wickedness, I was surprised that Agrippa published such a "taboo" book less than 50 years after the hammer of witches was also published in Germany. This shows demonstrates that not all men were witch hunting women haters as is often the stereotype of men in this time period. Wiesner-Hanks gives several examples of men with positive views of women in this time period on pages 25 and 26. Was anyone else as surprised as I was to learn about Agrippa's views on women?
Below is a woodcut of Agrippa and a reprint of his book in English.
4 comments:
Allison, I too thought that Agrippa's statements were bizarre yet pleasing at the same time. One of the few men who actually recognized the truth, right? Anyway, after reading about Agrippa, I thought I would look into him a little bit more by my favorite route of investigation (i.e. google search!). I found this picture on a library website. Whether it is truly authentic or not, I'm not positive (maybe Dr. Wolbrink can confirm?); nonetheless, it seemed cool enough to share:
http://www.ritmanlibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Agrippa_tp_women.jpg
http://www.ritmanlibrary.com/2012/10/does-woman-exist-agrippa-von-nettesheim-and-slavoj-zizek-on-women-and-their-presence/
Just the fact that there were likely male feminists in this era makes me happy!
McKenzie
Allison, I was surprised to learn of Agrippa’s position on women, although I do not know if an argument of the superiority of women is as advantageous as simply an argument of equality. However, it makes sense that he would offer such an opinion, as its oppositeness to the notions of male superiority would probably have ensured the most impact of his writing in his time. I wonder how much Agrippa’s writing was truly his opinion or a chance to “add” his voice to the debate on women in a noticeable way (or a combination of both) as Hanks discusses about other authors during the time. This question is especially important since he chose to publish his work only when a female ruler had ascended the throne, and thus, when it was probably fairly favorable to him. I just wondered if you had any thoughts on the timing of the publication or the strength of his personal belief in his own writing on women.
Wow Sadie, your views on this subject are very interesting! I had not thought about the fact that he might have chosen to write this way to get publicity and attention. I think your theory is plausible. I think that he was intelligent either way, simply because he wasn't afraid of writing about non-conventional ideas, whether he was being serious or if it was a ploy to get publicity.
Agrippa comes out the humanist tradition. Some Italian humanists argued more positively for women and a few trained their daughters, as we saw. Most Italian humanists did not focus on gender issues, but enjoyed tackling an idea and debating it. Coinciding with this was the whole publishing industry. A book I use in my Ren/ref course (How to Do it) helps situate folks like Agrippa in the post-medieval (that very arbritary line) in Germany--put more in the humanist publishing industry looking to get some people to buy books so they choose provative ideas. Nevertheless, you're right, it shows how much gender was part of the discourse.
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