Swastika Nights Patriarchy

“They had hardly more understanding than a really intelligent dog, and besides nearly everything was too sacred for them to hear” (Burdekin 415): so are the words of the Knight in Katharine Burdekin’s 1937 dystopia, Swastika Nights as he reflects on the treatment of women within his patriarchal society. This quote is representative of the harsh patriarchal ideologies present in the 1900s when Swastika Nights was written. This patriarchal and domineering language present in Swastika Nights is a clear example of a dehumanizing and degrading societal tone in regards to women. On the contrary, however, Herland, a 1915 utopian novel by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, describes a land where women are abundant and men are absent. The introduction of this
Specifically, within the excerpt, Gilman can be seen to embrace femininity by her description of Herland’s religion. Within the society, the practiced religion was “maternal pantheism” (Gilman 385), accordingly worshipping a female, rather than traditional religions for whose focus is of a “domineering paternal god” (Gilman 385) like Christianity or Buddhism. By removing the male-dominance from all regards of life, including religion, within the utopian society, Gilman can be observed referencing the negative impact patriarchy has on society while also revealing sources of female fears in male-dominated
As the text states, “All memories of the time when women were considered beautiful have been expunged, because the power beauty gave them over men was considered an insult to manhood” (Burdekin 412). The men in the text understood that in order to maintain order and dominance, beautiful women cannot exist. This behavior is similar to the modern cultural practices of Middle Eastern countries, where females are restricted to clothing that obscures their beauty, whereas, women in the United States promote equality and freedom in dress, thus representing women’s fear of losing their identity and the ability to express their