The Pagan History of The Bearded Lady
PopMatters columnist Matt Thomson takes a look at that perennial circus side-show the bearded lady. In addition to spotlighting modern (or perhaps post-modern) bearded ladies like Circus Amok founder Jennifer Miller, he also discusses the pagan history of bearded (and hermaphroditic) figures.
“In ancient Egypt queens donned strap-on beards called postiches, fashioned from leather and dotted in gold while celebrating powerful events such as the flooding of the Nile. Norse pagans worshipped the Earth goddess Friga, who was repeatedly portrayed as a woman with a beard. In fact many of the most well-known pagan deities, such as Aphrodite or Venus, names now synonymous with femininity, were worshiped as having beards once; usually in rituals that involved fake facial hair worn by the women who worshipped them. These Bearded Ladies were Goddesses; complete, supernatural women who rose above the boundaries of our mere human existence. And their androgyny was a symbol of their own spirituality. The beard symbolized the fact that because of her divine status, Friga was able to take on both feminine and masculine characteristics at the same time.”
Thomsom argues that part of the continued appeal of the bearded lady stems from this pagan past. That while the bearded woman went from revered figures of myth, to a feared demonic manifestation, and now simply to a circus curiosity the image still taps deeply into our subconscious. The bearded lady acts as an acknowledgement of our own history of sexual ambiguity, an outward sign that we can encompass both genders, that perhaps the mysteries of the “other” isn’t as mysterious or distant as we may believe.
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