The Magnet 103: The Archive of Illustrated Misogyny
When postcards weaponized humor against women
Note: This post contains images of violence against women. Please proceed with caution. These postcards were displayed at an exhibit at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid. Please see The Magnet 101 for my overview of the exhibition.
These postcards, which were displayed under glass at the Reina Sofía museum’s exhibition on the Esperpento movement, are from artist Raquel Manchado’s extensive Archive of Illustrated Misogyny. Her archive includes early 20th century postcards, comic strips, posters, calendars, and magazines that weaponized humor to push misogynistic messages. (Manchado also founded the publishing house Antorcha Ediciones, which offers zines with examples of symbolic violence and misogyny in early 20th century popular culture.)
The cards attempt to use humor to mock and degrade women based on their appearance and behavior. Common themes include jokes about "spinsters," "henpecked husbands," and women's physical appearances. The women in these cards were subjected to scorn, torture, and brutal execution.
They were made at a time when women were starting to gain independence through education and paid work.
The Freijo Gallery in Madrid, which represents Manchado, calls these postcards pre-internet memes, “given their viral quality, their omnipresence in public and private space and their role in propagating messages using a false neutral tone.”
It's disturbing to imagine men sending each other postcards like this for fun. Even more disturbing, this kind of mocking misogyny is still rampant in authoritarian propaganda. It's easy to go on Facebook and find vile memes with Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that degrade them because their leadership threatens the values of certain groups of people who think women should be submissive.
The battle between cruelty and kindness never ends. We struggle with it as individuals, and as a species.
Thank you, Joseph. It seems like it will be an endless struggle to fight back against this kind of fear and hatred.
I grew up on this stuff. I'm 68. My grandpa, a dude I loved and looked up to, had a house full of this kind of stuff -- postcards and little tchotchkes mocking marriage and women and homosexuals and black people, etc. Plus, he was married! And his wife seemed to think they were funny, too. It was a strange world.