Titel:

Research class Ai: „Territory is female – Black penis is white vagina“

Text:

How can the image of a white woman sexually harassed by colored
men arise increasing xenophobia in Germany?
– An essayistic attempt trying to reveal why territories are always female –

Essay by Elisa Gómez Alvarez

Christina Von Braun traces the relationship between the social body
and the human body to the symbolic gender order.1 Thus, for a long time the
ecclesiastical as well as the political thinking of Europe was determined by
the idea that the community consists of one head and one body. Paul said,
"Because there is a single bread, many of us are a one body."2 Christ is the head
of the congregation. The congregation itself stands for Christ's body,3 whose
limbs are made of the members who form an undividable body under Christ.
Even today, we call the president the "head of state". Bettina Von Braun directs
attention to the idea of a sexualization of this notion: "Just as Christ was
regarded as the 'bridegroom' of the faith community, and the bishop became
the sponsus of the church at his ordination - the ring which he touched over his
finger sealed the marriage.4 The king also married the empire at his coronation.
He became the maritus rei publicae:5 the king as a man, the people as his wife.
All national allegories – Germania, Marianne, Helvetica Britannica
– appear as female figures. The human figure necessarily has a sex, either
male or female. In Latin the name of the personification of a region had a
specific grammatical gender which had affected the gender of the territorial
personification in Roman antiquity. The simplest reason why we represent
our nations as women is that Latin has put her names into the grammatical
feminine. The question of why territorial words in our cultural Mediterranean
and then European era have a gender leads to abstract ideas due to older
cultures.
During his work on the symbolism of tombs, Bachofen found the
Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris, in the description of Plutarch (Moralia, Isis,
and Osiris) that inspired him to write the book "Mother Right".
Isis is the sister and wife of Osiris. She is the earth fertilized by the
Nile, the female nature, the vessel, and the substance of creation. Osiris is
the power embodied by the Nile and represents the male spiritual principle.
Enemy of the two is Seth, a violent monster, murderer of the Osiris, a symbol
of constant struggle and dispute. Finally he is overcome and given to the power
of Isis, who does not destroy him, but releases him. Thus, life arises from death
and death from life; life stands for the interdependency of male mind and
female matter. 6
Cities are traditionally feminine, as Sigrid Weigel traced back to the
ancient myths of urban foundations.7 For example, the biblical myth of "the
whore of Babylon"8 plays with gender constellations, which encapsulate urban
space as feminine and in this case represent the city of Rome.
The military idea of conquering, overcoming and possessing a city has
often been occupied (in literary terms) by the attributes of the conquest of a
woman. Ernst Jünger's diary entry on Paris clearly uses this metaphor: "Cities
are feminine, and only owned by the victor." Weigel writes about the connection
between the city and the woman: "The history of the city is full of examples for
the analogy of city and woman and female sexualization of city descriptions.
For example, in the context of war and conquest, foreign cities - like alien
territories - are often portrayed as female figures.9 The pose of the combatant
corresponds with the man's pose; he wants to conquer a city, penetrate her,
indulge in her - which is equally true for a woman."
Thus, the qualities of the immovable and enclosed also connect the
city with the characteristics of what is supposedly feminine. The city walls
surround the city. But not only the maternal and the protective character of the
city is part of the gender-oriented urban representation, also the menacing
danger outside the city walls is part of the analogy.
Imagery of the personified nations create a resemblance between the
individual body and the social community in order to reflect a national self
as a whole. With figures such as Germania collective identity features are
formulated and projected onto a body image, which is a model and statement
for the order of a social union conceived as a wholly imaginative.10 Mary
Douglas understands the body as a model of social order: "The body is a model
which can stand for any bounded system, its boundaries can represent any
boundaries which are threatened or precarious."11
For which bounded system did the women's bodies that were sexually
harassed in Cologne, two years ago, stand for?

1)
Christina von Braun, Gewalt im Spannungsfeld
zwischen Frauenrechten und Kulturen,
Braunschweig, 25.11.2011.
2)
Kor 10, 17.
3)
Eph. 5, 23 and 28.
4)
Kantorowicz, Ernst (1990): Die zwei Körper
des Königs.
Eine Studie zur politischen
Theologie des Mittelalters.
München, S. 39.
5)
Kantorowicz, Ernst (1990): Die zwei Körper
des Königs.
Eine Studie zur politischen
Theologie des Mittelalters.
München, S. 222.
6)
Wesel, Uwe (1980): Der Mythos vom Matriarchat.
Über Bachofens Mutterrecht und die
Stellung von Frauen in frühen Gesellschaften.
Frankfurt a.M., S. 13.
7)
Weigel, Sigrid (1990): "Die Städte sind weiblich
und nur dem Sieger hold“. Zur
Topografie der Geschlechter in Gründungsmythen
und Städtedarstellungen,
Kulturgeschichtliche Studien zur Literatur.
Reinbeck bei Hamburg, S. 212 ff.
8)
Offb 17,9.18.
9)
Giselheid Wagner: Harmoniezwang und Verstörung:
Voyeurismus,
Weiblichkeit und Stadt bei
Ferdinand von Saar, S. 206 ff.
10)
Brandt, Bettina (2010): Germania und ihre
Söhne. Repräsentation von Nation, Geschlecht
und Politik in der Moderne. Göttingen, S. 94.
11)
Brandt, Bettina (2010): Germania und ihre
Söhne. Repräsentation von Nation, Geschlecht
und Politik in der Moderne. Göttingen, S.
115.