One can do worse than listen to Wagner. My observations are generally applicable, although I am concerned mainly with the so-called European tradition of the past 25 centuries, from say, The Iliad to The March of the Penguins . If one wants to avoid exposure to the works of the depressingly large number of anti-Semitism artists in this tradition, then how is it possible to endure the rest of what it has to offer, given that the cultural fabric of our civilization is so densely saturated with the denigration of women?
Mozart is another great composer of opera. All of his libretti revel in the belittlement of womanhood. One can begin with Zerlina's charming aria in Don Giovanni : "Beat me, beat me, dear Mazetto. Beat me till I cannot stand it!". The Magic Flute exudes a thick aroma of Masonic chauvinism. There is the unapologetic cynicism of Cosi fan Tutte , and the subject matter of the Abduction from the Seraglio . Nor are the two female principals of The Marriage of Figaro , Susanna and the Countess Almaviva, much more than playthings. DaPonte dismisses the ancient custom of the droit de seigneur around which the opera is built as a charming foible rather than the barbarism it truly represents. One would perhaps not laugh if the old Papal custom of humiliating Rome's Jews at Easter were portrayed as some kind of humorous throwback. Although one can lay these insensitive slights at the feet of DaPonte, who clearly had something wrong with him, yet Mozart cannot evade censure, given that such sentiments are brilliantly transmitted in the music through the magic of his art.
If I can delight in Mozart's music, which I clearly do, then I can enjoy Wagner. Musicologists have pointed out that, despite Wagner's vociferous, even demented anti-Semitism, one does not find a single racial slur or demeaning characterization of any race or nationality in any of his operas. Beckmesser is modeled on Hanslick, who was not Jewish. The Nibelungen Hagen and Alberich, mean greedy gnomes, seem to be more in the nature of self-portraits than caricatures of any particular race. Wagner also loathed the French: can one uncover even one anti-Gallic snub in his libretti?
Taking an overview of Western art, 90% of it is deeply insulting to women, and intended as such. The examples that one can marshal in defense of this thesis are so numerous that one is faced with an embarrassment of riches:
In terms of its literal denotative content (and that of all poets, major and minor (sometimes very minor) who followed in his footsteps) proclaims, to the point of obsession, that women who do not consent to be ravished, or at least commit adultery with men who hanker after them are cruel, heartless, vain, selfish and evil. This may indeed be true in certain cases, but generally the fault is mixed.
Imagine however that there were women in this period who dared to write sonnets proclaiming that certain married men they were infatuated with were cruel, heartless, vain, selfish and evil because they wouldn't commit adultery. No doubt the few sonnets written on such a theme were burned by the hangman in the public square.
Milton's Paradise Lost stands alone I suspect, as a great poem of monumental proportions, with a cast of thousands of men and one very lonely woman.(Albeit with some cameo portraits of Astarte, transsexual spirits, etc.)
Lucia de Lammermoor : The male principals are Enrico, Edgardo, Normano, Raimondo and Arturo. The women are Lucia and her confidante. The "plot" centers on a fight over the hand of Lucia between Edgardo and Enrico, who wants to give her to Arturo. Most normal women would also be driven mad in such perilous straits!
Die Meistersinger: The male principals are Walther von Stoltzing, Hans Sachs, David, Pogner, Beckmesser and Kothner. The female principal is Eva, once more with her chaperone, Magdalene. The plot revolves about the quarrel between Stoltzing and Beckmesser over the hand of Eva.
Der Freischutz: The male principals are Cuno, Max, Caspar, Zamiel, the Hermit, Kilian and the Prince. The lone female principal is Agathe, with her inevitable companion, Aeenchen. The plot centers on the fight between Max and Caspar for the hand of Agathe.
Manon (Massenet): The male principals are Lescaut, Guillot, the Chevalier des Grieux, the Count des Grieux, and Bretigny. The lone principal woman is Manon. The plot revolves about most of the men fighting over Manon.
Much Ado About Nothing: 14 men, 3 women. Claudio thinks that Hero is a whore. Actually her serving-maid is the whore. Beatrice exhorts Benedict to kill Claudio because he has accused her cousin of being a whore. The tale ends happily when it turns out that Hero is not a whore.
Othello: 12 male principals, 3 female, Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca ( a whore). Othello kills Desdemona because he's been deceived into believing that she's a whore.
Hamlet: 5 very angry men , Hamlet, Polonius, Claudius, Laertes and a Ghost, fight to the death over 2 submissive women, Gertrude and Ophelia. Gertrude of course is a whore. Ophelia goes crazy when Hamlet accuses her of being a whore.
Julius Caesar, Henry V, Richard II, Richard III, Coriolanus.... These are martial pageants in which women figure incidentally at most .
All's Well That Ends Well, and Taming Of The Shrew. In both of these plays a decent woman becomes a whore to get what she wants.
Macbeth : Some women of character, at last, whose sexual availability is irrelevant to the plot ! Of course they're all monsters.
Antony and Cleopatra: 30 men and 4 women, Cleopatra the only female principal ( a whore).
Merchant of Venice : An anti-Semitic play in which normal roles are reversed. Shylock the Jew is treated as abusively as some of the women in his other plays, whereas Portia is, uncharacteristically, given credit for having a mind. Despite this deplorable record, I have no intention of abstaining from my delight in Shakespeare.
Yet one has to ask how is it that intelligent people willingly put up with such rubbish over so many centuries
Within the category of the "beautiful" there is a subcategory of "maternity". Western art also admits a vague 'maternal instinct', such as one sees in the thousands of Madonnas from the Renaissance onwards.Da Vinci's women are an exception, although their "beauty" is normally eccentric and perverse enough to qualify as a pathology.
Imagine a Jewish artist who, by some miracle, had been allowed to pursue his craft under the Third Reich, under the restriction of having to incorporate every standard anti-Semitic cliché in his paintings . Now transpose this highly unlikely scenario to the real dilemma faced by woman artists over the centuries. The very vocabulary of metaphors, gestures, symbols, conventions and stock situations essential to the transmission of an artistic message at any given time, has always been deeply imbued with anti-feminism. In order to create art that would be bought or exhibited, a woman would be obliged to acknowledge the most revolting stereotypes with regard to her own sex, all those mainstays of hostility and denigration which infect the very substance of European art.
How many consented to participate in this farce? How many among those who did were able to preserve their integrity? How many reached a plateau of greatness that gave them the freedom to express their true thoughts and opinions: Artemisia; Emily Dickinson; George Eliot ... Very few indeed.
Holding one's nose while reading the anti-Semitic rants of Pound, Celine, Chaucer, Voltaire and others is admittedly very painful.The difference is that the denigration of womanliness so completely co-opted the language of the arts that artists were unable to conceptualize any sort of artistic statement without participating in it.