Women in Lond(inium)on
When we think of women fighting for their rights and standing up for themselves against the judgments given to them by men, Britain’s Suffragette’s are usually what come to mind. However, in The Emperor’s Babe Bernardine Evaristo shows us that the women of what is now the United Kingdom have been working towards equality since the third century. She refutes the often-thought idea that until the late 19th century women just sat back on their haunches and accepted the treatment they got. When taking a closer look at the struggles of Venus, Alba, and Zuleika we can see that, despite their oppression and degradation, they took back their power wherever they could. Evaristo builds each character’s struggle through the use of literary devices and in turn, makes important commentary on today’s society as well.
Venus is a friend, mentor and business owner. Who just so happens to have been born in the wrong body. And because of this, she has spent her whole life being teased and mocked by strangers and family. Even when Zuleika thinks back on meeting Venus for the first time she mentions how they “joined in with a crowd throwing stones” and how her family left her “an orphan who quickly/became an urchin” (47, 48). This use of flashback helps us to see the ways that Venus struggled and suffered. Giving us this look into the past and seeing where she came from allows us to better see the ways in which she fought against the oppression she faced.
From there we can also begin to understand her future actions in a more complex way. She becomes more than a loud side character who was added for humor. This flashback shows how Venus managed to take her situation and make it her own. She started a clothing business for transgender women and then a nightclub used her the pain of her past to build something great. A literary device like this reveals the character development of an amazing person who went from rejected to in charge. In a world that wanted her to fail, that saw her as an abomination, she stood her ground and fought for her right to be who she is and won.
Like Venus, many trans women in London still to this day face oppression. According to a study done in 2015, Londoners are surprisingly less tolerant of transgender children than may be suspected. This poll of 2,000 people showed that “88 percent of people in the UK said they would support a gay child, but only 67 percent would feel the same about a transgender child” (Gander). This article also mentions the rising danger of hate crimes towards the LGBT community in the year 2015. A police report revealed that in that year, crimes towards transgender men and women had “risen to as many as 100 cases a month, with a monthly increase of 21.5 percent since March 2014” (Gander). These reports show that just like Venus in The Emperor’s Babe, oppression and violence toward transgender people is still rampant throughout London.
Alba too has faced the oppression that comes with being a woman both in Londinium and London. Though her bravado makes it seem she is fine with the treatment and abuse she suffers, taking a closer look at the language used when describing it reveals more. When reconnected with Alba after she gets married, Zuleika notices a “ripe bruise... a little darker/than her lilac, low-cut, sleeveless tunica” (93-4). While it is never outright stated it is from her husband, they were just talking about him in a violent context and so it is easy to put the pieces together and see the domestic abuse. And the alliteration in the sentence is another way Evaristo draws our eye to this moment. It is an eerily calm and beautiful way to describe something brought on by unforgivable acts of violence. The tone it creates wraps up the ugly truth up into a pretty bow.
By using alliteration in this way Evaristo is mirroring the way many treat domestic violence both in the past and now. Unsurprisingly domestic violence is still a huge issue not only in London but around the world and the lack of action taken by authorities and society is one of the major reasons it continues. The BBC reported on serial domestic abuser Jason Smith in 2017 saying “he was known to the police” and yet no steps were taken to prevent more abuse (BBC). His violence was ignored and as the result, a recorded 14 women became his victims. The actions of men in Evaristo’s Londinium are not as far from the present as we may like to think, and Alba is not alone in the abuse she suffers.
Later in the story, we learn a little more about the struggles Alba has faced. Once again, she brushes it off and masks her feelings—this time with humor and sarcasm. She declares to Zuleika that If she “had a choice, [she’d] not have kids” and then brushes that statement off with the joke about renaming her twins “Ball and Chain” (101). Unlike her friend, Alba was willingly married and even had a hand in who she got to marry. Where her issues come into play is the societal expectations to have children. Around her friends she is vocal about her dislike of having to take care of her kids but still covers it up with a joke. Similar to the deflection of the bruise on her neck, no one says a thing. They continue on with their lives in the way everyone expects them to because they are expected to, not because it is what anyone of them wants.
Luckily for today’s women, that expectation has gone down. However, it is still something many women feel the pressure of. An Op-ed by English journalist April Salchert talks about the expectations placed on her simply because she is a woman. She declares that “We are not cavemen. We have choices. Men do not have to hunt and women do not have to gather berries and breed children.” But, unfortunately, she still must deal with the pressure placed on her by everyone around her that is not expected of men. “Women do not hold the patent on nurture” but we are the only ones expected to bear children. And that’s not where the societal differences between men and women stop. Not in today’s terms, and definitely not in The Emperor’s Babe.
But Alba is tough. Her way of taking back power and rebelling against the expectations is through sex. She may be beaten by her husband and she may have been forced to have children, but that does not mean she won’t have some fun of her own. And in a modern world where “sleeping around” is frowned upon in women, it’s an inspirational thing to read about.
There are many layers to Zuleika and her oppression. Surprisingly, despite the fact that her family immigrated to Londinium from Sudan, she does not appear to suffer as much persecution for the color of her skin as she does for her gender. In fact, being powerless in the face of the man is Zuleika’s main concern throughout the novel. We first see this silent fight of hers in regard to her father and brother.
While visiting her at her own house, her father brags consistently about her brother and in turn, she uses a wide variety of epithets to describe him. From “Son of Sons” to “my brother/ the demi-god” and “Boy Wonder” (80, 82, 86). All these nicknames point out one thing—the societal superiority of men in Londinium. Nothing she ever does will matter to her father as much as whatever her brother is doing. By using these epithets Zuleika is proving this to us in the most efficient way possible. No long descriptive explanation is necessary when you can show the inequality in a couple words.
This disparity is something that can still be seen in numerous ways in modern day London. The most talked about one being the gender pay gap. A report from the UK’s Financial Times showed that in 2018 “almost 90 percent of women still work for companies that pay them less than male colleagues.” The main explanation they give for this difference in pay is that there are “more senior men than women” in most companies. Therefore, the reason women are put down in this way is that women are seen as less than in terms of capability in general. Not only in terms of pay but in actual profession as well.
While most women in Londinium do not have a job other than motherhood, Zuleika fights against this much like Venus does. She aspires to become a poet and speak her mind in a world that wants her to sit down, be quiet and follow orders. When none of the men in her life believe she can actually become a writer, she doesn’t take no for an answer. She rebels and works harder to reach her goal. And, taking a page from Alba’s book, she finds sexual liberation in a way. Her relationship with the Emperor is the closest thing to freedom she gets in her life.
Unfortunately for Zuleika though, her rebellion leads to death at the hands of her husband. In an attempt to take control over her once more, Felix slowly poisons her as punishment. Zuleika expresses her powerlessness in the face of her Husband through a couple succinct aphorisms. The first being “a husband could do what he liked/ and many an errant wife ended up/ in an unmarked grave outside the city walls” (242). In a few simple lines, she has summed up the power given to males. They run Londinium whether the women like it or not. And if not, they die. Evaristo’s ability to express the dark truths of life in a few precise words creates a powerful impact on the story she is telling. Zuleika knew this is where her life would end up and in accepting her death, manages to rebel against Felix’s control one last time
Venus, Alba, and Zuleika were not ones to sit back and accept the things that happened to them. This novel shows that women have always been fighting against the injustices they have faced. And, even though The Emperor’s Babe is set in third-century Londinium, the struggles of these women relate closely to the problems still experienced by the women of 21st century London. It is because of this that makes this novel more than a fantastic piece of verse. It makes it a commentary on today’s societal expectations, oppressions, and crimes against modern women. Using the setting of a centuries-old London helps to reveal the ridiculousness of dealing with the same exact issues still today. Fighting battles that should have been won long before.
Works Cited
"Domestic abuse 10% of London crimes, figures show." BBC News, 26 Nov. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-42122672. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Gander, Kashmira. "Londoners less tolerant of gay or transgender children, polls reveals." Independent, 19 Mar. 2015, www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home- news/londoners-less-tolerant-of-gay-or-transgender-children-polls-reveals- 10119183.html. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Gander, Kashmira. "Rise in racist, religious and homophobic hate crimes in London." Independent, 2 Dec. 2014, www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rise- in-racist-religious-and-homophobic-hate-crimes-in-london-9899009.html. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Salchert, April. "The Social Pressure of Experiencing Motherhood." Huffington Post UK, 9 Mar. 2012, www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/april-salchert/the-social-pressure-of- experiencing-motherhood_b_1851544.html?guccounter=1. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Wisniewska, Aleksandra, et al. "Gender pay gap: how women are short-changed in the UK." Financial Times, 5 Apr. 2018, ig.ft.com/gender-pay-gap-UK/.Accessed 20 June 2018.
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