Why National Personifications are portrayed as women.

So I have presented myself with a quandary and I propose it to you.

The past has not been kind to women. We all know this.

Women stereotypically represented domestication, motherhood, purity or sin (it depends on the context), and socially been have been labeled “the weaker sex”. Women couldn’t vote because they weren’t thought to be mentally or emotionally capable. They were to avoid too much physical stress because they were decided to be weaker and prone to things like “hysteria” or the infamous “wandering womb”.

Historically if a woman was too smart, too outspoken, or too assertive then there was something wrong with her. It was unnatural for a woman to possess “masculine” qualities.

So with this all out in the open, let me get to the point of all of this.

National Personification and the use of young, beautiful women as symbols of power, liberty, strength, and national pride.

You may or may not know this, but most of the national personifications are, in fact, female.

Germania (Germany)

Britannia (Great Britain)

Mother Russia

Marianne (France)

Italia Turrita (Italy)

Columbia (United States)

Plus many many more.

Now lets look at what these representations have in common.

• They’re all women, obviously
• They all wear loose fitting dresses that drape over them.
• Most of them have their hair down, or untidy if in action.
• They all seem to have something of a robust frame; wide shoulders, thick arms, forward foreheads, and strong jaw longs on oval faces and thick necks.
• They are all battle ready, either armed or just looking ready to fight someone.
• They all seem to be in their late teens and upwards.
• Most importantly they tend to make appearances during times of tribulation or war.

So what does it mean?

Why, in patriarchal countries where women are/were supposed to stay at home, let men lead, and not display masculine traits, would the nation be represented by these young, heavy built, non-sexualized woman?

My theory?

They are the representations of mothers. They are protective and angry, are the symbolic mothers of the country rallying their children to defend them while they defend her.

They are portrayed with strong features because they portraying one of the few historically venerated strong female roles, which is a mother and more specifically a mother protecting her children.

They wear long draping dresses and are not portrayed in a sexualized way because they were not supposed to be the girl back home you’re fighting for because she’s cute. They don’t represent that because not all men are willing to die for that girl.

If Columbia or Mother Russia was represented by a curvaceous young ingenue with a come hither gaze, she would not have the same effect as they do now. She would not invoke the same feelings of gratitude or devotion.

Just about everyone would be willing to die for their mother, because they know their mother would be willing to die and sacrifice everything for them.

Mothers are a combination of traditionally feminine and masculine traits. They are compassionate, selfless, and kind as well as aggressive, angry, and loud.

National personifications are mothers because the role of the mother in a patriarchal society justifies a woman not being sexy, being loud and angry, and being in a leadership position, while still being able to stir men to action.