Femmes Fatales? Queens and others from Helen of Troy to Jiang Qing

Adam and Eve both ate the forbidden fruit which led to their expulsion from Paradise and which brought pain and misery to the world. Eve got the blame for listening to the blandishments of the serpent and then inducing Adam to commit the fatal deed. The tale grew in the telling. In many mediaeval and Renaissance paintings the serpent was portrayed as a woman coiled round the tree. Ever since Creation there has been a universal propensity to blame women for disasters and crimes. Jezebel was blamed for the murder of Naboth, Salome for the execution of John the Baptist. Helen of Troy allegedly started the Trojan War in Ancient Greek times, Cleopatra an Ancient Roman civil war and the French Empress Eugenie the Franco- Prussian War in 1871. Queen Marie Antoinette was loathed as the principal cause of the French Revolution in 1789 and Jiang Qing, Madame Mao, "Dowager Empress of China" of the Cultural Revolution. The wives and mothers of Ancient Roman Emperors, Messalina, Livia, Agrippina and Poppea were accused by the historians of the era of heinous crimes. Delilah in the Bible betrayed Samson to the Philistines. The Russian Tsarina Alexandra was supposed to be the lover of Rasputin and to have betrayed Russia to Germany during World War. She and others suffered torrents of abuse, she and others suffered captivity and a gruesome death. Based on much original research the book illustrates the Misogynist Identikit foisted on prominent women and sometimes on relatively obscure women such as Mata Hari, an unimportant spy, in myth and history. The book is illustrated with 31 illustrations ranging from a painting of Jezebel being trampled under the hooves of Jehu's horse by Giordano to the "Scourging of Women" by Aubrey Beardsley. Jiang Qing is shown as a snake and a witch in cartoons; the French Empress Eugenie is shown seducing her own son seducing the Prime Minister and lying naked on a billiard table as the Emperor and his ministers play with her as the prize.