A Farewell to Huygens, or Victoria's Last Rant: Anna Maria van Schurman, the F-word and Human Pe

The sixth in a series: On literary reception, perspective and feminism.

Tomorrow, the 8th of June, my internship at Huygens ING will come to an end. Time to reflect. A few weeks ago, the stagiaires were transported from the upstairs flexkamers to the 'dungeon'; the, affectionately named, rooms below road level. The room I am in now sits adjacent to the striking entrance door of the Spinhuis. Most weekdays, on the hour, tour groups shuffle up to their guide to hear a tale of deviant femmes and the history of this magnificent building (which you can read in another of my blogs here). A few weeks ago, a school group stood by the door with their teacher. I saw several pairs of little eyes looking at myself and the other people in the room with me. We had always sat here plain as day in front of the other tour groups, but only the children were curious (and perhaps short enough) to really look and notice us. Smiling up at them made me happy and it struck me that this would provide an anecdotal entrée to a blog about 'perspective'. As, every situation, really does depend on it: your perspective, my perspective.

The week before last, my internship supervisor, Suzan van Dijk, gave a presentation at the International Aspects of the Literature and Culture of the Low Countries symposium organised by Jan Bloemendal here at Huygens ING. Suzan introduced members of the audience to the VRE, the ways in which it traced developments in women's literature and, more significantly, how it could be used to identify connections between authors, readership and the reception of women writers on a large scale. Of (literally) thousands of choices, Anna Maria van Schurman was chosen as exemplar to demonstrate this point.

Anna Maria van Schurman (sourced).

Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678) was a Dutch Golden Age scholar, painter, engraver, sculptor and poet. To be honest, on paper, she reads like Hermione Granger. Born in Cologne to well-to-do parents, by age four, Van Schurman could read. She then progressed to learn 14 languages (including Ethiopian, Hebrew and Arabic) and was the first female student in all of Europe to attend university (Utrecht University, of course!). She studied Theology, Literature and the Sciences, received both private tutoring and listened in at public lectures sitting behind a curtain (so as none of the male students would know there was a female present).

As Suzan described in her presentation, Van Schurman was very well received by her contemporary peers - both men and women - and her influence transgressed European borders several centuries after her death. During the seventeenth century, she was praised, read by and corresponded with Ireland's Dorothy Moore (1612-1664) and France's Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701) among many, many other female and male authors. Reception of her work continued fruitfully and, in the nineteenth century, Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929) wrote of her. Jacobs compared Van Schurman to Astell and Wollstonecraft of England, Gournay and Gouges of France; in other words, she considered her a national icon. [Just quietly: Aletta Jacobs is another fascinating Dutch scholar, physician and women's rights activist. In fact, in a theme of 'firsts', Jacobs was the first officially enrolled female student at a Dutch university (University of Groningen), where she obtained her medical degree. She used her knowledge of contraception and sexually transmitted diseases to treat and support underprivileged female patients - actions for which she received significant criticism.]

My thoughts on literary reception and the 'reception' of women in general are only based on my experience as a budding-historian and as a female. So, after working in the VRE for several months, I have noticed, for example - many women writers from Finland used a gender-neutral pseudonym - leading me to assume breaking through was difficult for women in literature. With the Russian authors, comparably few women used pseudonyms, but many of them were known as children's authors - perhaps, this was a more 'acceptable' avenue for women writers to explore? What I have learnt is that it is too simple and blatantly untrue to assume that negative critique came from men and positive critique came from women. This was not at all the case. If approaching reception through an historical lens, I can imagine that critique was frequently given without context, which made deciphering it difficult. Besides, even if it was explicit and deterministic, we can never really know what that person was thinking. Several male readers may have positively received women writers because they were afraid to be branded as misogynistic or out of touch. In contrast, female readers may have criticised writers of their own gender because they were genuinely unimpressed by their work, or perhaps, because they were jealous (somewhat reminiscent of the Queen Bee syndrome).

Aletta Jacobs (sourced).

Now, you scrolled past it a moment ago, but again take a good look at the portrait of Anna Maria van Schurman. What do you think of her? What do you immediately notice? Are you surprised by her appearance? I find her attractive (probably prejudicially, as I too have bags under my eyes, a lumpy chin and adore black hair), but quite plain. It is possible the artist, Jan Lievens, added a filter or two; other engravings of Van Schurman are decidedly less polished (think 80's perm gone wrong). I mention this because it relates to another thing on my mind at present. It is the fundamental stigma in Western society placed on the relationship between beauty and intelligence. What I mean is, if Anna Maria van Schurman was not a 'looker' or did not attempt to better her appearance in any way, there would be no shock in the fact that she was maddeningly brilliant at everything she did. However, if she was naturally stunning or managed to make herself attractive through a regimental grooming regime (like Empress Sisi of Austria), then her audience might question if she really was all that clever. After all, all the time spent on her appearance, could have been better spent reading books, no?

Last Monday night, at my 'Graduate Honours Interdisciplinary Seminar' programme (don't ask) we were asked to give a five-minute presentation in front of the class on a topic of our choice. I talked about 'My Big Fat (Scottish) Family' (again, don't ask). Another female student spoke about why she chooses not to wear make-up and why she suggests that other women should do the same. Fair play to her. I respect that choice - undoubtedly aided by the fact that she has skin like J-Lo - but that reality is not for me. Just as I choose what and to whom I say certain things; I too prefer to be around other people, no matter their gender, age, creed or colour, wearing the face that I prefer to show the world. When it came to question time, one of our fellow (male) students commented, more or less, 'Great topic, completely agree, I much prefer women who do not wear make-up too...' Ja, ik snap het that I am in The Netherlands and the au naturale look is favoured here, but I honestly felt like grabbing my €3 Etos lipstick out of my bag and lobbing it right at him. If you have not seen it, please watch the No. 7 advertisement featuring Chimamanda Ngozi, where she says, "Our culture teaches us that if a woman wants to be taken seriously, then she is not supposed to care too much about her appearance," so in an effort to be treated with respect, she stopped wearing make-up and high heels and became a "false version" of herself.

Like fate, a few days later, a fellow Huygens (male) intern looked at me and said, "Are you a feminist?" (He also said I remind him of Mel C, but that is a different story). I should have just answered "Yes" out of simplicity. I have no qualms about people who identify as such and I understand that one of the first ways to balance an unbalanced society is to raise the status of the marginalised party, but in my opinion, this can be done without an overarching politically and ideologically-loaded term that stands for gender equality. (Please direct your hate mail to my email).

Gender equality stands for gender equality.

I love women. I think women are the most fascinating creatures on Earth. I love looking at women, I love writing about them, and I love being one. But, I also love men! I do not understand why I have been raised to believe that I am any different from anyone else on this planet? Why I should be provided different opportunities, goals and trajectories? I live for the day when the whole world collectively realises that, men and women, are extremely similar... almost... human. Segregating one gender from another works to highlight the insecurities and inequalities of one party that do not concern the other, but this is a preliminary measure. If an equitable, utopian world does exist, then we must ALL be on board.

That means destroying stigma. Men and women who take a lot of pride in their appearance - good on you. Men and women who do not give a shit - good on you. Men and women who leave school and get a job - good on you. Men and women who study and travel - good on you. Whether it be intelligence, attractiveness, social skills, sexual habits, physical fitness; the point is - to me - there should be no 'men and women'. The future would be far brighter, for all of us, if we just dropped the gender dimension and got on with more important things: like what Gracie Lou Freebush said, world peace.

#feminism #annamariavanschurman #HuygensING #History #Literature #womensliterarystudies #womenwriters #NEWW #UtrechtUniversity