Have you ever seen the famous painting by Jacques-Louis David, ‘Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of His Sons’? The painting was made by David during the French Revolution and depicts a mother mourning the deaths of her sons and her daughters.
This might sound like a stereotype of women being weak, but I think otherwise. Just because a woman is crying doesn’t mean she is being fragile, only that she is bearing the pain and costs of war.
But now the Supreme Court has decided to overturn Roe V. Wade. After hearing the news, many women went into a depressed and painful state. Wanting to seek comfort and solace, they went on the internet and posted about their current state. Instead of getting sympathetic responses, they faced a lot of hate from people saying they were “weak” and “overreacting”.
Sadly, this isn’t the first-time women have had these kinds of insults coming their way. Many women are used to having the way they express their emotions or just their emotions in general being deemed “dramatic” or “exaggerated”.
The reason this painting is so famous is because of what it portrays. In the painting, you can see on the upper-left corner, Brutus’s son’s body and feet. They lay there pale, lifeless, and dead. Then, on the bottom left corner was Brutus. We can see that his expression looks tense and sad, as he is trying to restrain his composure.
Next to him on the right, we see four women mourning and crying. We see the first sister cover her eyes as if she didn’t want to see her brother’s lifeless body. And her other sister who has fainted from seeing her brother’s dead corpse and you can see she truly was traumatized. Then we see the mother, who seems to be trying to run to her dead son, and you can see the anguish, grief, and pain in her eyes as she looks at her sons. Now, on the far left, we see a woman covering her eyes and looking the other way as if she hopes that this is just a dream and that she cannot bear the sadness of seeing the deceased bodies.
The reason many women find comfort in this painting is the fact that the women are fully able to express the agony inside of them without anyone telling them that they are being “too dramatic”. Allowing other women to know that they can express their feelings freely and however they want and to not be afraid of showing their true emotions and speaking out about it.
This might sound like a stereotype of women being weak, but I think otherwise. Just because a woman is crying doesn’t mean she is being fragile, only that she is bearing the pain and costs of war.
But now the Supreme Court has decided to overturn Roe V. Wade. After hearing the news, many women went into a depressed and painful state. Wanting to seek comfort and solace, they went on the internet and posted about their current state. Instead of getting sympathetic responses, they faced a lot of hate from people saying they were “weak” and “overreacting”.
Sadly, this isn’t the first-time women have had these kinds of insults coming their way. Many women are used to having the way they express their emotions or just their emotions in general being deemed “dramatic” or “exaggerated”.
The reason this painting is so famous is because of what it portrays. In the painting, you can see on the upper-left corner, Brutus’s son’s body and feet. They lay there pale, lifeless, and dead. Then, on the bottom left corner was Brutus. We can see that his expression looks tense and sad, as he is trying to restrain his composure.
Next to him on the right, we see four women mourning and crying. We see the first sister cover her eyes as if she didn’t want to see her brother’s lifeless body. And her other sister who has fainted from seeing her brother’s dead corpse and you can see she truly was traumatized. Then we see the mother, who seems to be trying to run to her dead son, and you can see the anguish, grief, and pain in her eyes as she looks at her sons. Now, on the far left, we see a woman covering her eyes and looking the other way as if she hopes that this is just a dream and that she cannot bear the sadness of seeing the deceased bodies.
The reason many women find comfort in this painting is the fact that the women are fully able to express the agony inside of them without anyone telling them that they are being “too dramatic”. Allowing other women to know that they can express their feelings freely and however they want and to not be afraid of showing their true emotions and speaking out about it.