Paradise lost all over again

Take two women (preferably with an age difference), a judging authority (e.g., God, an oracle, or even a talking mirror), a secluded place, and—optionally—a forbidden or poisoned apple. There you have the plot. A canon of stories about jealous women shapes our narrative worlds. Want some examples?

The stepmother is so jealous of Snow White’s beauty that she makes several attempts on her life. Snow White is lucky and is saved because a man falls in love with her seemingly lifeless body. Really? There’s hardly a story that offers women less sex appeal to identify with.

Even goddesses can’t escape the rivalry fueled bythe male gaze: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, in their dispute over the title of “The Most Beautiful,” casually reduce all of Troy to rubble and ashes. And because it’s so much easier to shout, “She’s just jealous—what more does she want?” rather than ensuring equality, Lilith and Eve are not only cast out of paradise but also immediately blamed for the Fall of humanity.

What are these stories actually warning us about? The “envious woman”—or a world that encourages women to fight each other? Yeşim Nela Keim Schaub and Lisa Pottstock, together with their performers*, rewrite these stories: Instead of poisoning each other from behind, they reveal their envious faces and joyfully engage in confrontation.