Christa (1974) by Edwina Sandys • Woman Crucified (1913) by Frantisek Drtikol • The Crucifixion of St. Julia (1497) by Hieronymus Bosch • The Crucified Venus (1913) by Norman Lindsay • Christian Martyress (1866) by Gabriel Cornelius von Max • Eulalia (1880) by Emilio Franceschi
“I’ve often thought of a female Christ. David told me there’s one in a church in Montreal. Mostly the world can’t take it. Because of people’s feelings about the delicacy of women and also because of what a meaningless display female suffering simply is. If you belittle us in school, treat us like slaves at home and finally, if you get a woman alone in bed just tell her she’s all wrong, no matter what sex you are… or maybe you just grab one on the street and fuck her real fast– in an alley, or in her own bed. I mean if that’s the way it usually goes for this girl what would be the point in seeing her half nude and nailed up? Where’s the contradiction? could that drive the culture for 2,000 years? No way. Female suffering must be hidden, or nothing can work. It’s a man’s world and a girl on a cross would be like seeing a dead animal in a trap. We like to eat them, or see them stuffed, we even like to wear them, but watch them suffer? Hear them wail? The complaining lines were expunged from Florence Nightingale’s book.” - Eileen Myles, Cool for You
