Affective Resistance to Sirach’s Androcentric Presentation of a Daughter’s Body

This article concentrates on the affective impacts of the relationship between the bodies of the father and his daughter in Sirach. It relies on gender studies as well as affect theory to explore how intensities pass from body to body in the biblical text, and also to the bodies of those who read it. The father’s body is marked by gynophobic anxiety about his daughter that causes him to lose sleep, and by fear of being ridiculed by other men (Sir 42:9–11). He recommends controlling his daughter’s body and not radiating joy toward her (Sir 7:24–25). From her birth, a girl is considered a loss for her father and can bring shame and disgrace (Sir 22:3–5). Sir 26:10–12 presents the daughter’s body as an abject, marginalized and sexualized body designed to provoke disgust. This disgust did not cling to a real flesh and blood mother and daughter who participated in an empirical reading experience of these passages. Her emotional and bodily reactions went from anger to laughter, showing affective paths of resistance to Sirach’s androcentric presentation of a daughter’s body.