In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

MALE VS. FEMALE 309
the same binary distinction. On one side is Maria, the motherly protector
of the workers' children, surrounded by symbols that emphasize her
likeness to the Virgin Mary: "The leader was a girl with the austere
countenance of the Virgin, the sweet countenance of a mother. She held
two skinny children by the hand" (Lang, 27). Female evil is represented
not only by the half-naked dancing girls in the "Club of the Sons" [see
Gomina] but above all by Maria's double and antagonist, a robot which
is programmed to incite the proletarian masses to revolution-and to
self-destruction. A true prostitute of the machine age, the mechanical
Maria is completely at the disposition of the masters of Metropolis, who
financed her manufacture, and she casts an evil spell on all who listen to
her. A similar structure defines the status of the female protagonists in
Kafka's Schloss. As Max Brod's interpretation highlights, "women have
(in the language of this novel) 'relations with the castle'-and women's
importance derives from these relations, although they cause great confusion
for individuals of both sexes" (Kafka, 303). Frieda has been the
lover of one of the castle's administrators, and thus, for K., an erotic
relationship with her-not unlike an erotic relationship with one's own
mother-implies both a promise of protection and a threat of revenge.
Woman's dual image as mother and prostitute is not only a literary
conceit. In December, Italy's Fascist government imposes new standards
of hygiene on the State-run brothels, as well as "a punitive tax on male
celibacy" (de Grazia, 43-44). Such institutional measures are no doubt
partly inspired by fear stemming from the spread of gender equality, and
the government strives to encourage heterosexual relationships by extending
as far as possible the traditional asymmetry between the male
and the female partners. Virility becomes a general norm for Fascist life
and art. The bifurcation of female identity-either mother or prostitute-is
officially reduced to its positive pole and unofficially confirmed:
"The model of masculinity and seriousness has great power over youths,
and when they are summoned by the phantasm of art, they will neither
embroider songs and lyrics with feminine intonations nor chatter about
the same old love affairs with call girls and maids, nor fiddle around with
words to come up with the same old descriptive trifles" (Puccini, 259).
[see Silence vs. Noise] A decree of May 21 states that women should
regard family matters and acts of charity as their natural fields of action,
and excludes women from the Italian political world by prohibiting them