Custody in the Harem

The Refusal, Queen Vashti, by Marcelle Hanselaar

Esther 2

Commentaries by Ericka Dunbar

Works of art by Fred Wilson, Ira Mallory and Marcelle Hanselaar

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Queen Vashti’s Refusal and Radical Resistance

Commentary by Ericka Dunbar

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Dutch artist Marcelle Hanselaar’s The Refusal, Queen Vashti is one of several prints within a collection she titled ‘rebel women of the apocrypha’ that depicts female biblical characters who experience violence and trauma. Hanselaar refers to the figures as ‘feisty heroines, early feminists that assertively stand up to male dominance’ (Amina Mundi 2023).

Indeed, Queen Vashti audaciously resists male domination which is later legalized through an edict coinciding with her deposal (Esther 1:19–22). She refuses to subject herself to the sexualized gaze of the king and his inebriated guests—the first instance of sexual trafficking in the book of Esther (Dunbar 2019). Vashti’s resistance is framed by Memucan, one of the king’s sages, as an offence, not only to the king, but to the king’s officials and to ‘all the people’, including the men gathered at the king’s party and those who live throughout his provinces. He espouses fears that one woman’s actions will inspire resistance among all females, which will then become a problem for all men (vv. 16–17). Accordingly, a law is created that ‘every man be master in his own household’ (v. 22). The law is a tool to reassert male dominance.

The consequences of Queen Vashti’s refusal are that she is banished, and beautiful young virgin girls—including Hadassah, or Esther (her Persian name)—are legitimately sought, transported, held in custody, subjected to a year-long beautification process, and then sexually abused and exploited by the king (2:1–9). This reflects an intensification of the sexual trafficking initiated in Esther 1 (Dunbar 2019).

Many interpreters negatively characterize Queen Vashti for her outright refusal and suggest that Queen Esther is more of a model queen because of her calculated yet subversive resistance. Both women resist, so why does Queen Vashti experience additional interpretative violence because of her modus operandi? I hope that Hanselaar’s work of art elucidates for readers that Queen Vashti’s actions, much like Hanselaar’s art (in her words), ‘provide a much-needed energizing subversiveness’ to male dominance (Amina Mundi 2023) across space and time.

References

Amina Mundi Gallery. 2023. ‘Marcelle Hanselaar: Rebel Women from the Apocrypha’, available at https://www.animamundigallery.com/exhibition-marcelle-hanselaar-rebel-women-of-apocrypha [accessed 4 April 2024]

Dunbar, Ericka. 2019. ‘For Such a Time as This? #Us Too: Representations of Sexual Trafficking, Collective Trauma and Horror in the Book of Esther’, Bible and Critical Theory 15:2, available at https://bibleandcriticaltheory.com/issues/vol-15-no-2-2019-bible-and-critical-theory/for-such-a-time-as-this-ustoo-representations-of-sexual-trafficking-collective-trauma-and-horror-in-the-book-of-esther/ [accessed 4 April 2024]

A Heavy Head

Commentary by Ericka Dunbar

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The saying ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’ speaks to the gravity of leadership. Ira Mallory’s Hadassah: Queen Esther mini-series highlights this through Hadassah’s (Esther’s) role as Queen of Persia. His portrayal emphasizes the weight of her queenship in an ancient context.

The retelling gives more voice to Hadassah and Vashti than the biblical text does, Vashti reminding Hadassah of her origins as a ‘poor Hebrew girl’ and advising her to choose her battles wisely, always seeing the ‘larger picture’. Vashti's advice and Mordecai’s treatment of Hadassah in the biblical text underscore how marginalized people are often conditioned to fight for ‘larger pictures’ while receiving little support themselves.

In the book of Esther, Queen Hadassah ‘chooses’ to battle on behalf of the collective Jewish people after being pressured by Mordecai to do so (Esther 4). Her resignation to ‘battle’ follows a depiction of widespread systematic sexual trafficking in the first two chapters. Sexual trafficking commences with the sexual exploitation of Vashti (Esther 1) and is intensified when the king legalizes the gathering and transportation of countless virgin girls (Esther 2), and engages in their sexual abuse. Yet, no one goes to battle for their safety (Dunbar 2019).

We may note that the king’s empire spans territory from India to Ethiopia, geographical locales that are predominantly inhabited by Black and Brown girls in contemporary contexts. This is significant, given the historical and ongoing exploitation and trafficking of Black and Brown girls and women from Africa and India.

Mallory’s image and attention to sexual abuse in the biblical narrative prompts us to reinterpret the story for today's context. It calls for a refusal: disempowered girls and women should not be compelled to protect others (forced leadership) while receiving no protection themselves. Re-examining this story might inspire us to dismantle systems that impose burdens before and during leadership. This is how we reinterpret the story ‘for such a time as this’ (Esther 4:14).

References

Dunbar, Ericka. 2019. ‘For Such a Time as This? #Us Too: Representations of Sexual Trafficking, Collective Trauma and Horror in the Book of Esther’, Bible and Critical Theory,15.2, available at https://bibleandcriticaltheory.com/issues/vol-15-no-2-2019-bible-and-critical-theory/for-such-a-time-as-this-ustoo-representations-of-sexual-trafficking-collective-trauma-and-horror-in-the-book-of-esther/

Hadassah and Harriet

Commentary by Ericka Dunbar

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In 1992, African American artist Fred Wilson created a double layered print—perhaps a nod to the double-consciousness that enslaved people experienced in colonial cultures. It fuses a sixteenth-century engraving of Esther (hereafter referred to by her Hebrew name, Hadassah) with one of the most popular and memorable artistic depictions of the American abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Wilson gifted this artwork to the Jewish Museum for a collection that celebrated the intersections of Black and Jewish experiences.

Not only is Wilson's art symbolic of the similarities between two historically minoritized and colonized ethnic collectives but it also illuminates parallels in the lives of two females, Hadassah and Harriet, whose historical activism is often narratively and historically suppressed. Hadassah’s and Harriet’s lives intersect around several experiences:

colonization (and related experiences of forced physical and sexual enslavement);
narrative gaps and erasure;
secrecy and silence;
movement across geographical terrains/border crossings (in an ancient context, to facilitate the sex trafficking of Hadassah and countless other nameless/faceless girls; for Harriet, as a tool to free the enslaved through the Underground Railroad);
gender liberation;
community organizing;
militant leadership (Hadassah’s guiding of the Jews to survive impending cultural genocide, and Harriet as conductor of the Underground Railroad and as an army spy, nurse, and soldier during the Civil War).

Additionally, these two barrier-breaking, community-liberating figures’ narratives amalgamate around distorted representations. Hadassah’s story in Esther 2 has traditionally been interpreted as a beauty contest in which young, virgin girls compete to replace Queen Vashti. Many biblical interpreters read the book of Esther through the lens of comedy suggesting that elements of the story are laughable, albeit subversive. Similarly, in 2013, record executive Russell Simmons released a satirical video titled, ‘Harriet Tubman Sex Tape’ on his YouTube channel. In the video, which was taken down within 24 hours because of widespread disdain and protest, Harriet is depicted as oversexed and provocative, endeavouring to trick her ‘master’ into supporting her Underground Railroad movement by threating to release a sex tape of their intimate encounter.

These reflections underscore an ideology that sexual abuse—actualized and envisioned, and especially of disempowered and often minoritized girls and women—is often perceived as comedic and unserious. Perhaps silence, secrecy, and masks exacerbate the abuse. Wilson’s picture illuminates that both Hadassah and Harriet embodied and cultivated courage and used wit and trickery to subvert laws and actualize liberation for themselves and for their people.

References

Sargent, Antwaun. 2018. ‘Black History Month: Queen Esther/Harriet Tubman, 27 February 2018’, The Jewish Museum, Available at https://stories.thejewishmuseum.org/black-history-month-masks-for-purim-b21fa8229b4a [accessed 4 April 2024]

Minoritized Girls’ and Women’s Stories

Comparative commentary by Ericka Dunbar

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Experiences of physical, sexual, and narrative violence against girls and women across ancient and contemporary contexts, and resistance to such atrocities are what link these three images. Historically, countless girls and women have been subjugated by dominant males who rendered disempowered females inferior. The stories of the unnamed virgins in the book of Esther, of Hadassah (Esther) herself, of Vashti, and of Harriet Tubman all elucidate that many girls and women of various ages, ethnicities, and nationalities have been physically and sexually abused, enslaved, and subjected to narrative erasure, notwithstanding the diversity of their class and of the other social identities they embody. Enslaved girls and women, colonized virgin girls, queens: none is exempt from the brutal mechanisms of kyriarchy, patriarchy, and other forms of horrific violence unleashed by hegemonic males in androcentric societies.

These stories also illuminate, particularly, that ethnically-othered girls across ancient and contemporary contexts are often perceived as especially trafficable, exploitable, enslave-able, and rape-able.

Attention to intersectionality—a framework that identifies the interlinked and complex ways that power interlocks (this critical lens clarifies that people experience privilege and/or oppression at the intersection of multiple embodiments of social identity—e.g. race/ethnicity, gender, class, ability, sexuality, nationality, etc.)—enables readers to perceive the roles of ethnicity and class, as they intersect with gender, in contributing to female experiences of and vulnerability to physical and sexual exploitation (Crenshaw 1989). Likewise, attention to the mechanisms and dangers of kyriarchy enable biblical readers to understand that the oppression of Africana* girls and other minoritized victims of enslavement and trafficking in the book of Esther is intentional and systematic. Moreover, these girls and women are socialized to be complicit in their oppression by accepting a subordinate status.

Specifically, in the book of Esther, references to geographical locales help bring into focus girls with specific ethnic and national identities—from the continent of Africa to the subcontinent of India (1:1)—who are captured and transported to Susa in response to the king’s decree. These locales are likewise central in the transatlantic slave trade from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. When we put biblical African girls’ and women’s experiences in dialogue with experiences of enslaved Africana girls and women during and after the transatlantic slave trade, like Harriet Tubman, we might perceive their experiences of trafficking, enslavement, and rape across contexts as collective, intergenerational, and cultural traumas.

Silence and secrecy are also prominent themes in the book of Esther. Outside of Queen Vashti and Hadassah—whose Hebrew name is initially identified though she is thereafter referred to by her given Persian name (even the biblical book in the Jewish canon bears her Persian name)—the names and identities of countless other victims of gender-based violence and sexualized abuse are concealed. Moreover, euphemisms are used to describe characters and their actions such as ‘the maiden who pleases the king’ or those concubines whom the king ‘delighted in’ (2:4, 14) which further contributes to silence and concealment obscuring sexual abuse and trauma within the text. Silence, secrecy, namelessness, narrative suppression and erasure, and euphemisms function to mask abuse, exploitation, and terror. These devices conceal the identities of vulnerable individuals, often prohibit readers and interpreters from identifying abuse, and may limit readers’ ability to recognize the girls and women within these stories as embodying assertive and audacious refusal, resistance, and resilience.

These three works of art invite readers to demask the abuse of biblical and other ancient and modern girls and women alike. By overlaying images of Hadassah and Harriet, Fred Wilson foregrounds the multiple and intersecting oppressions that enslaved persons endure (including physical and sexual violence) in colonial cultures. Marcelle Hanselaar’s art accentuates both the intoxication and lasciviousness of the king and other ruling males in the story world (which leads to the legalization of male dominance) and the fiery dissent of Queen Vashti, which leads to her dethronement. Ira Mallory’s screen portrait of Queen Hadassah foregrounds the weightiness of wearing the crown. Hadassah started as a lower-class Hebrew girl, the descendant of enslaved people, and was transformed into a Persian queen. She endured violence to become queen and—along with her people—faced threats of violence after becoming the king’s consort. Yet she uses her agency and power to defend the vulnerable. Undefended yet willing to defend others, that is a heaviness that far too many minoritized girls and women carry.

These three images invite readers to #SayHerName, and to share ancient and contemporary girls’ and women’s stories, especially those whose names we’ll never know or be able to say. They invite readers and interpreters to recognize these feisty, fierce defenders of liberation, ethnic, and gender equality, and human dignity.

References

*By Africana, I mean collective communities of girls and women located on the continent of Africa, and/or who descend from the continent, and/or who have been displaced from the continent through the transatlantic slave trade or voluntary migration.

Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory. and Antiracist Politics’. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140: 139–167

Fiorenza, Elizabeth Schüssler. 2016. Congress of Wo/men: Religion, Gender and Kyriarchal Power (Cambridge: Feminist Studies in Religion Books)

Next exhibition: Esther 5:1–8