Category: Jewellery

I started to rethink the possibility of using jewellery design to improve the image of women to help them reduce the impact of self-objectification under the male gaze. With that thought, I began to explore the relationship between jewellery, patriarchy and femininity.

As Russell (2010) said: 

“The hallmark of human civilization and patriarchy is hedged struggle for domination especially on the body of women, sexuality and production which is universal internationally. Jewellery, a form of art defines lucidly body interaction and is closely wound up to the social mechanism competing to dominate those very bodies.”

Wearing a round metal ring on the finger and many other parts of the body is one of the common traditions in different parts of the world. The ring is one of the most symbolic of all types of jewellery. My choice of the ring as the main target for analysing the relationship between jewellery, patriarchy and femininity is representative and clear.

1. The Tradition

The tradition of wearing rings or band as ornamental or ritual jewellery was derived from the Romans traditions and they had various symbolic functions like marriage, conspicuous exhibition of high status and wealth, family or kingdom seal, proprietary act, and fraternity or solitaire. It is explicit that design of rings for both male and female is different due to factors like body character, ritual or custom and psychological traits of the two aspects. On average, women are slightly shorter and fairer in complexion than men so the ring design for ladies is more exquisite and smaller. In contrast, men’s rings are wider and exaggerated appearances. Psychologically, ring is also used as love symbol, proprietary act, sexuality ownership, power wealth and status. Majority of rings which are presented to women for marriage proposals, faithfulness, poesy, purity, or betrothal all symbolizes an act of proprietary or ownership.

2. Wedding and Engagement Ring

Russell expressed a point that jewellery also as the symbol of control bodies and ownership of sexuality and for it the most obvious usage of jewellery is wedding ring and engagement ring. Various cultures traditionally had jewellery that separated the fertile and available from the rest of the women. Currently the size of the diamond or other precious stone on the ring of engagement dictates the worth of the woman. Also the larger the precious stone on the ring also denotes the woman beauty and prominence in the society. In early days the pain and faithfulness of the woman also translated to the size of the ring that the husband gives her. The rings varied from promise rings to faithful rings during the battle or during industrialization where men would venture out of their territories to look for better opportunities for their families as posited by Russell (2010). This means that the largest and burdensome ornaments were reserved for women whom the society viewed had honour and appropriate femininity mould. 

Ritual rings and other types of jewellery have been used as a tool of ownership of sexuality. This is grasped through physical incapacitation, ownership and control and is applied over to the female body. Engagement and wedding rings are examples of how jewellery exerts power to women over reproduction and sexuality. Betrothal rings were pieces of jewellery that restricted the girl from physically using their sexual organ for their own gratification but reserved it to the husband that the society deem fit.

3. The Diamond Ring

Diamond ring is the mainstream as engagement ring nowadays. The branding of the female body has been successfully and extremely incorporated through the male honour projection that is currently the American culture wrapped in the diamond engagement ring. The ritual is not tradition but a ploy devised by diamond producers and advertisers by integrating it into American ways of life. The trend commenced in 1880s and suffered a blow during the Word War 1 and due to Depression era (Miller, 1997). However, the trend was revived by the world biggest diamond cartel known as N.W Ayers for De Beers through advertisement campaigns that made diamond rings an inseparable part of engagement and wedding ritual. According to Cele and Scott (1996) De Beers campaign success was hedged on the narrative that sexual and wealth potency are associated with particular way in which their policy on engagement rings that are incorporated straight from the advert to the wedding etiquette gospel. Thus the campaign success also is hinged on making diamond ring an object of eliciting sex a link which has been conveyed to non-engagement advert for diamonds that created a proscriptive narrative on how to accurately procure an engagement ring coupled with the inflexible guide on how to determine the good quality and price. 

With the development, the company commenced an aggressive campaign using the slogans dubbed diamond are forever and celebrities like Marilyn Monroe lyrics of the song titled “Diamonds are a girl best friend.” The idea was to link diamond to sexuality and it materialized quickly which depicted a female willingness to be owned through diamonds exchange as gifts. What followed were adverts that portrayed explicitly sex and greed appeal and this was fuelled by the loosening of the nation moral during the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

4. Feminist Jewellery

There is a small number of jewellers that have focussed their attention on gender issues and the gaze to which females are constantly subjected. These jewellers seem to speak to the feminist and queer approval of female choice and female agency, empowered female bodies, rather than the objectification of female bodies. Rebecca Russell investigates jewellers that produce works inspired by queer and feminist theory as well as experimenting with this idea in her own designs and manufacturing of jewellery. She describes her own work as a “creation of a body of work that explores jewellery’s potential to serve as a tool with which to critique and queer traditional thinking about the body.” (2009: 93)

5. Conclusion 

All over the world from ancient’s times the rings have long been observed as the superlative symbol of faithfulness, fertility, poesy, betrothal, engagement or promise for marriage. At dissimilar time frame diverse rings ritual developed which continued to own women through proprietary act. Women have been subjected into situations and circumstances that are unacceptable and demeaning in exchange of a ring. Every stage of ancient woman life was crowned by a ring and finally marriage ring which crowned or marked as a symbol of ownership to eternity for women. Gender equality sources for free will and the engagement concerning the rings that are associated with the life of women harbours no free will but exhibit forced power dynamics (Russell, 2010). Men have asserted authority to women through societal hierarchical structures that demean women as inferior beings. From ancient time up to 21st century women continue to suffer injustices through being awarded a little precious token (diamond ring) while forfeiting their dignity and transformed forever into pallid misfortune symbol. Women sexuality ownership was asserted through the context of rings functions. The wedding and engagement rings traditionally served as both symbol and means of authority to enforce the expected role of wives. Gendered sexuality commenced once the girl reached puberty and the society engaged in mechanism which constructed gender bias through cycle of obligations and prohibitions. Physical incapacitation does not only serve to promote but also to impose ownership which neutralizes femininity by imposition of restrictions. The Paduang women were restricted through bronze neck rings, the Hindu bride through bangles and Turks bride through puzzle rings. In Africa women also underwent heinous physical incapacitation by wearing enormous jingle anklets and 5 kgs neck rings as imposed disability locuses. The incapacitating objects were usually crafted as cultural pride thus women are required to submit to these traditions that keep them subordinate. The exchange that happens during marriage or engagement using all manner of rings from diamond to gold commences the first subordination for women turning them into commodity, and further transcend to sexual labour division and other form of gender inequality.

The long-standing patriarchal system in which a man seems to have made a conscious decision to show his ‘purchasing power by using his wife’s body as a site for displaying his financial wealth’ has led to women’s bodies being ‘turned into a kind of capital bosom from which to hang jewellery’ (Arnold, 2013: 15). Media advertising under consumerism exacerbates this more entrenched ideology, such as the size of the diamond in an engagement ring often being a reflection of the husband’s financial power and possession of his wife. The female body is thus used as a display of power, adorned for others (especially men) to see. Feminism, on the other hand, advocates the rights and role of women in society and supports the freedom of choice for women to be able to make decisions on their own personal terms. Although some jewellery designers are aware of this issue and give feminist ideology to their designs, the focus remains on appearance, sexuality and the body, rather than on women’s individuality, talents and abilities.

Reference：

1.Arnold, J. 2013. Victorian Jewellery, Identity, and the Novel: Prisms of Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing, pp.15. Available at: https://www.wfanet.org/app/uploads/2018/06/WFA-Guide-toProgressive-Gender-Portrayals-in-Advertising.pdf 

2.Awefeso, N. (2002). Wedding Rings and the Feminist Movement. Journal of Mundane Behaviour. 3(2).

3.Cele, O. & Scott, L. (1996). Something old, Something New: Exploring the Interaction between Ritual and Advertising. Journal of Advertising. 25(1): 33-50.

4.Kunz, G. (1917). Rings for the finger: from the earliest known times, to the present, with full descriptions of the origin, early making, materials, the archaeology, history, for affection, for love, for engagement, for wedding, commemorative, mourning, etc. London: J. B. Lippincott Company

5.Lerner, G. (1987). The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford UAP.

6.Miller, P. (1997). Those Quirky Dream Merchants. Catalog Age. 14(1):7.

7.Munn, G. (1993). The Triumph of Love: Jewellery 1530-1930. London: Thames & Hudson.

8.Russell, R. (2010). Gender and jewellery: a feminist analysis. Create-Space Independent Publishing Platform.

9.Scarisbrick, D. (2007). Rings Jewellery of Power, Love and Loyalty. London: Thames and Hudson Publishers.

10.Stol, M. (2016). Women in the Ancient Near East. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.

11.Howard, V. (2003). A Real Man’s Ring: Gender and the Invention of Tradition. Journal of Social History. 36(4): 837-847.

12.Zoellner, T. (2006). Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit and Desire. New York: St Martin’s Press.

13.Kothari, K. (2017). The True Significance Of Bangles In Indian Culture. Accessed January 1, 2020 from: https://www.bollywoodshaadis.com/articles/the-true-significance-of-bangles-in-indian-culture-1665

14.Deneson, A. (2017). True love waits? The story of my purity ring and feeling like I didn’t have a choice. Accessed January 1, 2020 from The Guardian Online: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/feb/18/purity-ring-virginity-abstinence-sexual-education.

In the plan for the intervention I envisaged the possibility of producing the final jewellery in reality to help women in terms of craftsmanship or materials, for example by providing jobs or supporting traditional handicraft women makers.I found some relevant artists and studied their concepts and techniques in depth.

1) Heng Lee, a young talented Taiwanese jeweller and in her works the enamel is replaced by embroidery. Heng’s work is a mixture between computer assisted digital patterns and traditional crafts skills. In the “Floral Embroidery Series” he takes inspiration from the Chinese embroidery, which is a very old fine traditional craft. When you see his work you obviously thinking of pixels. It’s actually what he does: playing with photoshop in order to create a pixel mosaic. Then the shapes are cutting with a laser cutter. After using softwares, computer engineering and new technologies, Heng goes back to the traditional skills by using hand-embroidery to give colour and details to his pieces.

3) Ziju Chen

In 2006, American jeweller Ziju Chen researched and experienced a lost technique following her Master of Fine Arts degree. The jeweller is an artist in residence at Xiamen University in Fujian Province, China, and a lecturer at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China.
In the series ‘China, Silhouettes of Memory’, Ziju Chen uses the famous bright blue feathers alongside Chinese banknotes, coral, turquoise and old photographs of Chinese families. Layers of banknotes with thin lines drawn by the feathers. Colour and technique are used to link and set the different parts and materials together. ziju Chen melts monofilament (used in fishing) to tie beads etc. Every detail tells us a story about China, its traditions and beliefs.