The uterus is at the crossroads of several approaches and areas of interest: it is an organ that arouses many fantasies, as evidenced by religious practices, literature, and cinema. However, all of these contribute, in different forms and to varying degrees, but nevertheless with a certain permanence in time and space, to the sacralization of the organ.

Since ancient times, objects have been placed in tombs or offered in shrines to celebrate motherhood, sanctify a specific organ, and honour deities. Several terracotta statuettes of women have been discovered in the Greek world. On two of them (fig. 1), originating from Myrina in Turkey and dating from the 2^nd-1^st century BC, the cavity in place of the belly is closed by a small removable lid that hides a chubby and unreal-looking foetus. Despite debates about the identification of these figures (pregnant women placed under divine protection, educational toys for girls, or representations of deities such as Aphrodite, goddess of sexuality, or the Ilythies who preside over childbirth), it above all emphasizes a celebration of the “fulfilled” female body. Only one organ is specifically represented by the craftsman: the uterus is filled and protected by its cover. These ancient statuettes, named “women with drawers” by V. Dasen, clearly express the purpose of the organ and of women: to give birth to many healthy children.

The celebration of femininity through the full and proudly displayed organ appears outside of ancient polytheisms. Thus, in the Middle Ages, statues of the pregnant Mary celebrated virginal motherhood, while offering protection to those who came to pray and celebrate her (fig. 2). They generally have a cavity at the level of the abdomen filled with the baby Jesus, who looks more like a chubby baby than a foetus. These statues, evidence of intense popular devotion, were numerous in the 14^th and 15^th centuries, particularly in Germanic lands.

They are reminiscent of the many paintings of the Visitation or the Annunciation in which Mary is also pregnant, with the infant Jesus visible as if through transparency. In later depictions, the child sometimes continues to be represented, but now at the level of the heart, the uterus being considered too human an organ of pregnancy. Only childbirth remains celebrated, a sure sign of precious contents.

This Christian view of the female body and a sacred organ is sometimes reused for political purposes. Félix Pyat, a former member of the Constituent Assembly of 1848, journalist, and playwright in exile for his opposition to Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and then to the Empire, published a Letter to Marianne (fig. 3) in London, which parodies the Hail Mary in order to better attack the Church and its support for the Empire. Marianne, associated with Liberty since the Revolution, here becomes the Republic and the mother of the Republic, the Virgin and the Mother, the Queen and the Goddess. The term uterus is replaced, classically, by entrails. Catholic adoration rhetoric is subverted to serve a democratic political project, with sacralization coming through Marianne’s (pro)creative and protective power. The “entrails” are (re)generative and fantasized; the sacralised uterus is a public organ because it is republican.

Sacralization and cultural productions

Sacralization therefore transcends Christianity and is found in secular traditions, such as that explored by Marc Chagall in his 1913 painting La femme enceinte (The Pregnant Woman, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam), in which an enormous woman occupies the centre of the canvas in front of an allegorical village landscape. Her left hand guides the viewer’s gaze to her oversized uterus, at the centre of the canvas and the woman’s flowery skirt, sheltering a miniature adult celebrating the life to come.

In her 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood makes the uterus the place of all encounters and fantasies. In the “Republic” of Gilead, where sterility has taken hold, the few fertile women have been transformed into productive wombs serving the infertile families of the elite; their red habit, so recognizable by its colour reminiscent of female blood, makes them “scarlet handmaids.” In this new world, children must be born from ritualized rapes within the household, with the handmaid disappearing into the large marital bed, between the bodies of the biological father and the social mother. She is reduced to an organ to be filled. June (renamed Defred), played in the television series by Elisabeth Moss, is in the service of the Waterfords. In a few sentences (fig. 4), she sums up the fate of the maids’ vanished bodies. Indeed, all that remains of them is the essential, the precious organ, at the service of the community. Devoid of their own identity, deprived of their privacy and all rights over their bodies, the handmaids are reduced to a uterus, an autonomous and detached part, collectivized and sacrificialised by the Gilead regime and its social elite.

Sacralization and commodification

This sanctification of the organ is often accompanied by a desire to protect its contents. In the 21^st century, fantasy and sacralization also involve commodification. Under the guise of protection or a return to nature, a veritable market has developed since the end of the 20^th century. The example of bolas is revealing. Between trendy objects and prophylactic amulets, these pieces of jewellery reinvest an ancient symbolism: small hollow metal spheres with a small ball or bell inside, representing the uterus and its contents. (fig. 5). During pregnancy, the pendant must be worn on a cord or chain at the height of the uterus. It is supposed to produce sounds and vibrations intended for the foetus, to calm and protect it, but also to expose and reinforce the pride associated with the proper filling of an organ. According to advertisements, these bolas have become an essential apotropaic* object for any successful pregnancy. Sales are generally accompanied by magical-spiritual discourse, sometimes in the form of a small booklet, almost always claiming ancestral and distant origins (Mexico, Bali, Indonesia, etc.) as proof of effectiveness. It is a short step from protection to marketing.

Thus, at the beginning of the 21^st century, a movement was born around the artist and author Miranda Gray, who proposes that at each new moon, women connect with each other through their wombs to (re)invest in their “nature” and “femininity.”

Accompanied by Moon Mothers, those who are interested are invited to connect “woman to woman” and “womb to womb,” expressions found on many websites accompanying these global blessings. The organ is said to connect the feminine to an ancestral cosmic order. While access to the cyclical sessions is free, generally requiring only a simple registration, the books promoting these techniques are not free, as is the support of uterine coaches, whose advertisements are flourishing on the internet.

Bibliography :

V. Dasen, « Femmes à tiroir », in V. Dasen (dir.), Naissance et petite enfance dans l’Antiquité, Fribourg-Göttingen, Vandenhoeck-Ruprecht, 2004, p. 127-144.

E. Berthiaud (éd.), Enceinte. Une histoire de la grossesse, entre arts et réalité, Paris, Éditions de la Martinière, 2013.

F. Bujor, « L’utérus dans le récit contemporain : Entre “expropriation” et “dénaturalisation” ? (1985-2018) », in M. Guyvarc’h, V. Mehl (dir.), Utérus. De l’organe aux discours, Rennes, PUR, 2022, p. 215-225.

J. Burgart Goutal, Être écoféministe. Théories et pratiques, Paris, Éditions L’échappée, 2020.