2. Picasso Stated Women Are Either “Goddesses or Doormats”
Picasso said to his former lover, Françoise Gilot, that women are “machines for suffering” and that he viewed them as either “goddesses or doormats.” The sentiment that women are machines for suffering is particularly sinister coming from an artist whose work frequently depicted the female form contorted into torturous representations of eyes, mouths, and genitals. One wonders how much of his cubist idealization of women was influenced by the profoundly troubling views he held towards the women in his life.
Given that Picasso thought women could only be doormats or goddesses, it is not shocking that Gilot left him and famously stated that their relationship fell apart because “I am not a submissive woman.” It would appear that Picasso could, in fact, not find any use for a woman who did not neatly fit into either of his preconceived categories.
The concept of women being either goddesses or doormats is similar to the virgin-whore dichotomy that still frequently accompanies depiction of women in popular culture. One need look no further than a modern horror flick to find a representation of the virtuous, worthy woman who abstains from sex and survives; compare her to the filthy, degenerate woman who pays the ultimate price for her perceived sexual crimes. Such binaries have burdened women for centuries and will likely continue to do so.