Woman With An Axe!

There's just something about a woman with an axe.


Why is that? What is so special about this image, this idea? I hope to reveal something of the answer over the next week or so with a series of posts on a few different subjects having to do with those ladies and their axes --






On the one hand, the axe has a utilitarian role in many women's day-to-day lives; on the other, it's a common weapon in the fantasy of warrior women art. The historic case of Lizzie Borden is of course impossible to escape in any such analysis - indeed, the commonality of the axe as a weapon in murders committed by women is one key to its fascination. The axe as religious symbol, the axe as power symbol, the axe as sexual symbol - why, I'll even toss in some axe-throwing, what the heck.





I hope you will join me in celebrating this potent image of woman and axe.