Virgin from Ger

-No? Then..., what am I?

-It's an idle and vicious question: ask yourself better what processes have led you to think "I am that".

Interview with Pol B. Preciado. La Vanguardia 02/04/2008.

Art also offers us images that collect and express many of the aspects of the society that it creates. In this sense, it was in the context of medieval Christianity that spread one of the stereotypes that has marked the social imaginary more strongly with respect to what a woman should be: the woman-mother. This iconographic model, taken from the primitive goddesses, abundant in the Romanesque period and which was truly exploited in Gothic art, will be perpetuated over time, with slight variations, and presents maternity as the substantial reason of female existence. The woman as a machine of affection and care, which gives life but does not express any sign of autonomous and significant existence beyond this reproductive relationship, will be shut in the home, with the private and domestic space differentiated from the public sphere to which they will not have any access. This is a good example of how the powers of a moment and its conception of the world marks the global imagery of a society and even transcends it.   

Virgin from Ger, Romanesque 11th Century