Equality Of Women Through Art

In 1971, Linda Nochlin issued her article “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? This idea of aesthetic genius, says Nochlin, is fiction. Art is rarely produced entirely by the artist for the idea of personal expression. Few identifiers in contemporary art have been as fraught as the term feminist art. What does it mean, who defines it, and how does it relate to past accomplishments of the feminist movement?

In the Declaration of Sentiments, author Elizabeth Cady Stanton expresses her anger of the oppression experienced by women in the United States. After being rejected to attend the World’s Anti-Slavery convention in London, Stanton was frustrated because she was being rejected for being a woman. This motivated Stanton to share her own ideas on advocating women’s rights and changing the way women are treated in society because of the mistreatment done to her, as well as many women across the nation waiting for their voices to be heard. Stanton parallels the Declaration of Sentiments with the Declaration of Independence by using laws that the male population regarded as righteous and including how it had negative effects on over half the American population. This put into question male authority and supremacy, creating a more concrete argument by revealing what men already have under the law, to what women should have. The sophistication of the Declaration of Sentiments to a document that the U.S. government values highly, threatens the values of the U.S. by making women’s rights a more pressing issue. The Declaration of Sentiments targeted the U.S. government and the population by appealing to their own opinions and beliefs in order to recognize that women were being treated like second-class citizens. Although the Declaration of Sentiments never made a significant impact on the

The entire Women’s Movement in the United States has been quite extensive. It can be traced back to 1848, when the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. After two days of discussions, 100 men and women signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this document called for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women. This gathering set the agenda for the rest of the Women’s Movement long ago (Imbornoni). Over the next 100 years, many women played a part in supporting equal treatment for women, most notably leading to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed women the right to vote.

Of all the issues that were in the middle of reformation mid 1800’s, antislavery, education, intemperance, prison reform, and world peace, women’s rights was the most radical idea proposed. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 was a rally held by Elizabeth Cady Stanton with the common goal to eventually achieve equal rights among all citizens. Frederick Douglass, who became an acclaimed activist in the African American Equal Rights movement, accompanied the movement. Moreover, The Declaration of Sentiments was a document that reflected the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, reiterating the sentiment from the Bible that “all men [and women] are created equal.” Concurrent to the publication of this document, for the first time, women insisted that they were men’s equals in every way. The Declaration of Sentiments was pivotal in Women’s history, although it was not given credit until the late 20th century. However, immediately after the Declaration of Sentiments was published, women and activist groups were inspired to take action towards rights for all underprivileged American citizens. The convention took place in a small town in upstate New York, which was home to four of the five people who organized the gathering. (DuBois, 1999, p. 45) This was the first time female equality was discussed in a public place. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 was one of the most important events in women’s rights history.

In 1848 a group of women met at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York and began to formulate a demand for the enfranchisement of American women (Women’s Suffrage, 2011). Elizabeth Cady Stanton composed the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, stating that “a man should not withhold a woman's rights, take her property or refuse to allow her to vote” (Kelly, 2011, para.3 ). The convention participants spent two days arguing and refining the content of the Declaration of Sentiments, then voted on its contents; the document received support from about one third of the delegates in attendance. The Seneca Falls Convention was not a resounding success, but it “represented an important first step in the evolving campaign for women’s rights” (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p.374, para.1).

Judy Chicago (artist, author, feminist and educator) has a career that now spans five decades. In the late 1960s, her inquiry into the history of women began a result of her desire to expose the truth of women’s experiences, both past and present. She still continues on a crusade to change the perception of women from our history, “Women’s history and women’s art need to become part of our cultural and intellectual heritage.” (Chicago, 2011) Through our history women - their struggles, accomplishments and contribution to history, have been overlooked, downplayed and even completely written out of a male dominated society and culture. In anthropologist Sherry Ortner’s 1974 essay “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” she supports this view, writing “…woman is being identified with—or, if you will, seems to be a symbol of—something that every culture devalues,” (Ortner, 1974) Where Mendieta's work primarily came from a striving to belong and an understanding of where she came from, I feel that Chicago's aim was to find a place for all women, past and present in this world, starting with herself in the art world. Chicago did explore her peronal heritage in later works entitled 'Birth Project' and 'Holocaust Project'.

The history of mankind has often been captured in snapshots between the rise and fall of great leaders and civilizations, by artists all with a common dream of portraying what they saw during their times. Ideologies reflective of their societies were depicted through sculptures, frescoes, pottery, paintings, and many other methods. Many of these principals were created, celebrated, and popularized by constituents of societies where andocentric values were applied not only to social and political mores, but also to the various art forms as the male body was cherished and praised and the female body was hidden away from public view. The book Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany edited by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrad, strives

One of those female Renaissance artists was Mary Beale. She lived from 1633 till 1699, in the time frame of when the Renaissance was occurring all over Europe. She came to know many artists because her father was an amateur painter. She was influenced by some of the artists that were part of the same guild that her father was. She was most famous for her portraits (Women Artists of the Renaissance), and most of them were of clergymen, due to the fact that her father was also a clergyman. She experienced more demand of her work at the peak of her career compared to the beginning of her career, since

The first thing I noticed when reading about the various women artists in Slatkins, Women Artists in History was the roles each woman played in their household. The first two artists, Spencer and Peale were both breadwinners for their family. Spencer's painting were actually the only source of income for her family however, men were still in charge, as they ran the household. As a feminist, I am upset by this, even though though the women did all the work they still lived in a patriarchal society. As a realist however, I am not surprised at this, women today still fight for equal rights. Even today, women get paid only a percentage of what men get paid, for the same work. Some positive things about modern women artists is that at least today

The feminist art movement, stemming from the second wave of feminism mid 20th century, brought passionate and talented works of art in performance, protest, and exhibits of feminist culture and gender equality. Certain groups, such as the Guerilla Girls, were exceptionally effective with their tactics and force of commitment to passion on the injustices of women, or basic gender in equality, in the art world, and extending beyond just that world. This movement echoed the voices and the complaints of the women of the second wave by pursuing alternate forms of protest and educational performance art to make waves and send messages about these boundaries. By using art and activism together, these fearless and strong women groups and artists were able to make marks and large steps towards a broader understanding and revolution of justice in the sexist world we live in.

Women have played many roles in societies since the dawn of time ever changing with time and from society to society. Each society hold a special place and role for women good and bad. Freedoms and equality of women has varied from opression to freedom. I will discuss some specific pieces of art and explain how the art shows the role of women in a specific society. I will tell you of their paril and achivements through time. Giving you a glimpse into the lives of women and how they were percieved by males and society. Some have have reveared women and some have disrespected them but through it all women have found a way to perservear. Women hold a place in history from culture to culture, and we see this in many pieces of art. From the

The purpose of my essay is to discuss the various different approaches that female artists have used to challenge women’s identity as the inferior sex and how they have attempted to promote the deconstruction of gender throughout history. I want to explore how the earlier Feminist Artists influenced the work of subsequent female artists and facilitated their success within the art world. I will show how Feminist Artists used their own perspective and personal experiences to create a natural link between the viewer and the artwork, often with the intention of encouraging a change both socially and politically. Their artwork often utilised what would be considered traditionally female skills such as craft techniques, a prime example of which

I was always amazed with the artistic craftsmanship and emotional power of long chain of women artists from Artemisia Gentileschi to Camille Claudel and Frida Kahlo. It was clear that in the past, the amount of women artist was limited due to traditional position of women in the society as subordinate and dependent on men. Likewise, I have never been aware of women discriminative tendencies by museums until I came across activity of Guerilla Girls. Interestingly, it was MoMA exhibition of 1989 that made women-artists so mad that they started their movement to promote a proper balance between men and women artists within museum

The unprecedented number of women artists whom were creating portraits of other women as well as themselves unquestionably influenced the appearance of radical femininity in Modern portraiture. Each of these women brought with them their unique perspectives on femininity, many of which were dramatically different than that of their male counterparts. From Mary Cassatt 's depictions of mothers and children, to Romaine Brook’s and Gluck 's dandy-esque self-portrait, or Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore 's critical explorations of gender, these women created a new paradigm of female representation in art. All of these artists questioned and challenged the role of women in Parisian society by representing women in ways which were

A clearly defined Black feminist perspective cannot be found in the K-12 art education curriculum at this time. Although several articles from Wanda Knight and Jessie Whitehead have discussed the importance of including a Black feminist and woman of color perspective, nothing definitive can be found in the current art education curriculum. Through the use of Charles Mills’ theory of “revisionist ontology,” I will discuss the importance and value of including a Black feminist perspective in the K-12 art education curriculum.