Tag Archives: art

Study Says Women are Objectified, I Say ‘Duh’

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I recently read an article that said, “The European Journal of Social Psychology says that all our brains, regardless of our gender, view men as ‘people’ but see women cumulatively as their body parts.” Well, duh.

The study had volunteers look at photos of both men and women and then had the subjects look at isolated images of their body parts. The result was women’s isolated body parts were easier for the participants to remember.  So, we could look at this and say “women are always objectified,” and I was prepared to write that argument but then I remembered (again) DUH! Of course we are! I’m going to take a different road on this, ready?

Women are prettier than men and that is why our body parts are easier to remember. Think about it—breasts are better than no breasts. Rather, feminine breasts are better than masculine breasts. Give me a picture of boobs or a man’s chest and I’m staring at boobs. Even our butts are better—they’re generally perky and almost always round, and male butts are square with sometimes-harsh angles.  Women are round and soft and we have curves and stick out in all the right places, while men are straight, and angular and hairy. I don’t want to remember that! Do you?

I don’t think this is a bad thing, and I don’t necessarily think that we should look at this in an “objectified way.” No, I think we should look at this as art. We are art. Paintings, sculptures, muses; some are males but most are female. We’re just better to look at and that’s not a bad thing. Can we just agree on that?



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Sarah Maple’s “It’s A Girl!” Art Exhibit Review

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Sarah Maple is an up-and-coming artist, and in her second show, It’s a Girl! she pokes fun at gender roles. From a white dress stained with menstrual blood, to a picture of a vajazzled woman, Sarah points to the absurdity of our culture.

Maple uses herself as an example in her work, and this time she’s less sarcastic than in her first exhibit.  Some say the female self-portrait has become a cornerstone of feminist art, as it shows us how we really see ourselves. Maple revisits this concept with the two portraits An Artist/A Female Artist, where artist Stuart Semple is juxtaposed with Maple – the Female Artist – in a nude body suit of overblown prosthetic femininity. Maple’s piece says that she’s positioned as A Female Artist, a freakish footnote to the neutral Male.

Maple has been compared to several other feminist artists – a comparsion she rejects and one she tries to distance herself from. However, her work and success does echo others, and like Emin’s, her success has been attributed in large part to having caught the eye of Saatchi during her final year as a Fine Art student. She is also keen to critique the ‘cliqueiness’ of the art world while participating in its games and simultaneously – and deftly –  promoting herself, placing herself centre-stage.

Maple’s discovery and rise to fame also raises questions. Is it sexiest to think that she’s made it this far because she was discovered by a male? And if not, who out there can deny the impact that it’s had on her career? The next question would be “How does Maple navigate this self-proclaimed feminist artist, ‘critiquing’ the art world’s pretentiousness while backed by Saatchi, the very person who perpetuates the cycle?” Pot … meet kettle.

Maple is only in her 20s and some would argue that what we do in our 20s is all hypocrisy anyway.  But these questions need to be asked because of the subject matter of the work: feminism. In ‘It’s A Girl!’, Maple’s reference points are obvious, Disney, Playboy, and, in ‘This Artist Blows’ (her first exhibit), the burqa, which is so often so lazily-referenced in our media as the only ‘symbol’ for the lives of millions of women. Is it art if it’s screaming that it’s art? Is it art when it’s all been done before?

But that’s the point, it seems. It all has been done before, and there is a new generation that won’t know. For instance, now we have “The Slut Walk” and people that it was an original idea, because they didn’t know that “Riot Grrl” came a decade before.

But the bottom line is that Maple is having fun, and having a laugh, too. Some have called her “toilet-humour funny, clever-funny, cultural-reference funny, and sad-drooping-Playboy-bunny-ears-funny.” And if there’s any remedy for hypocrisy or tiresome art, it’s laughter, and that’s good enough for me.



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Can A Feminist Writer Only Write About Feminism?

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I recently read an article in which a feminist writer was asked if everything she writes needs to be feminist, or have a feminist slant. Her response was that since she is a feminist, it tends to bleed through all of her writing and that, naturally, it would more than likely show up in all of her works.

Personally, I’m a bit offended by that response. As a writer and an admirer of many different writing styles, I feel that really pigeonholes women and feminists and writers. And women who are feminists and writers. A writer who is an expert on a particular topic should be expected to spend most of their time writing about that topic, but to say that’s the only thing they could (and should) write is a bit upsetting. Why would you want your authors to be so predictable?

Ahem. For example. Stephen King is an amazing horror writer whose books consistently reach the bestseller list, but that’s not all he can write. He’s written amazing short stories – The Shawshank Redemption, believe it or not, was penned by King, the famed “horror writer.” Not only that, but i’s transcended genre, as it’s frequently studied by bible groups as a way to understand forgiveness and the path of Jesus Christ. King also wrote Stand By Me, a coming of age story of four young boys. [Ed. Note: King also wrote a novel by the name of Rose Madder, which chronicles the growth and travels of a former abused woman who moves on with her life, begins the unimaginable on her own in starting over, and ultimately puts her ex-husband ... well, go read the book. It's fabulous.]

So to say that feminist writers can only write about that, or that Stephen King can only write horror, is rather short-sighted in my humble opinion. Yes, darkness creeps into a lot of what King writes, and feminist writers probably have a very strong and self-sufficient heroine in each of their stories, but there is no need to pigeonhole. To write is to create an escape or to educate a reader. Writing is an art form and we dip into ink of many different colors.



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Unsung Praises for Young Jean Lee’s “Untitled Feminist Play”

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There’s a new play by playwright Young Jean Lee called “Untitled Feminist Show,” which features six women who perform the entire play nude. Completely nude. “My jumping-off point for all my shows is like ‘What’s the worst idea I can think of?’ or like, ‘What’s the last show in the world I would want to make?’ And then I force myself to make that show,” Lee said. “Feminism – when I first had the idea for the show – really did seem like a dirty word.” Feminism has, indeed, been described as a “loaded term,” and even Lee admits that “It’s gone through this phase of people not wanting to be identified with it, and seeing it as this ’60s hairy armpit kind of thing.”

Lee grouped together a slew of performers to kick around some ideas, and it turned into month-long, six-hour chat sessions that kept returning to one issue: Young Jean Lee.”One of the big problems for us was the fact that because you are born with a certain type of biological body, it kind of dictates what is OK, how it’s OK for you to be,” Lee said. “The show is basically that,” she said. “What that looks like.” She explained that this idea was mind-bending to her because “while some people claim to have freed themselves from gender expectations, it’s very hard to do.” She retells a story of a male friend who found himself inexplicably enraged when on the subway a man sitting near him pulled out some wool and started knitting. So Lee …

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