The Feminist Art Movement During The 20th Century

The Guerrilla Girls are a group of women formed in 1984 after an art exhibition hosted by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City where it became clear to them that the art industry was gender bias with women artists not being acknowledged. Since then they have been devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world, their mission to bring gender and racial inequality within the arts into focus. They have done this by producing factual and humorous posters that comment on these issues and that challenges and confronts society to realise the injustice.

The women’s liberation movement (or feminism as it is now known) of the 1960s and 1970s touched every home, business, and school (WA, 705). The movement even touched the sports and entertainment industries, in fact, “There are few areas of contemporary life untouched by feminism” (WA, 717). The word feminism in the early 1960’s wasn’t often used and when it was it was used with condescension or hatred. However, in the late sixties that changed thanks to a new group of women. This new diverse group of women included the: young, old, heterosexual, lesbians, working class, and even the privileged. This diverse group came together and collectively created the second wave of feminism.

In the twenty first century there are a few men in this world that admits when you think of artist, you don’t typically think of women. Women rights and racism play a strong role when it comes to African American female artist. For decades’ African American woman have always had a permanent double bull’s eye on their back. Their skin and gender was their worst enemy. In the 1700 century women rights movements started to rise. But if you look up women right movements starting in the 1700 century, the face of women rights is predominantly white women. Between books and the internet, they show that it was mostly white women who helped woman rights. If we still struggle to shine light on African American Women now in the 21st century, you cannot

LES FLANEUSES (2008) by Ghada Amer, this piece of art actually exemplifies a huge movement of feminism and feminist art that promotes equality between men and women in the workplace, at home, and in society in general. A “flantur” is a French

On September 7th, 1968, hundreds of women gathered on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, carrying signs and singing songs that all had the main theme of protesting the Miss America Pageant. Later, they threw items of women’s oppression in what they called a freedom trash can. While the women who were apart of the Miss America Protest worked to defy society’s oppression and standards, they also marked one of the first explorations in the feminist movement. This certain protest helped to pave the way for many more women to come and impacted many of the basic ideas of fighting society’s norms.

In the lecture titled “Dismantling Injustice”, the speaker talked about the relationship between risk and empathy, in that artists take incredible risks by putting themselves out there, yet they need to understand someone else’s experiences and empathize with those who hold different opinions than them. In order to explain the risks they take, the speaker gave many examples of artists working to fight against injustice. One example was the Guerrilla Girls: a sarcastic group that aimed to bring awareness to social injustices such as sexism and racism. In order to do this, this group of women wore gorilla masks around New York City, posting stickers on art galleries that didn’t feature a high amount of female artists, and creating billboards with facts on how

Major Claim: In the Second Wave of Feminism, a group of feminist artists enacted the group entitled the "Guerrilla Girls". In addition, this group of activists fight against the discrimination amidst the world of art by creating various medias of the Arts through literature, studio art, advertisement, public and public display. This is to counteract their oppressors within the field of art. In Anne Teresa Demo's Essay "The Guerrilla Girls' Comic Politics of Subversion", she analyzes the rhetorical approaches the association utilizes in aid towards resistance.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s the feminist movement grew rapidly, beginning the era which would greatly impact the way women were perceived in society. Literature shows to be a direct reflection of the societal belief during the two reform eras in the late 1800s leading up to the 1930s. The most influential to literature of the time period was the second reform era which pushed for progressivism for a utopian society in which women could actively resist the roles of females being essentially required to live as “the common housewife”. Being stripped from their rights, women did not have the option of becoming independent and educated or becoming employed in a job of their choosings. Remaining at home women were not granted the equal rights of those that a white man held. Males seen as superior to females granted for women to marry at a young ages, bare children and obey to their husbands commands keeping them content with their doings. Traditional women roles at the time uniformly restricted them to their duties

The 1960s civil rights revolution motivated Americans to speak out “their grievances and claim their rights [which] dotted the political landscape” (GML, p.795). Thus the “second wave of feminism” emerged announcing the existence of inequality between men and women in cultural society, seeking to change cultural society structure through the means of adopting radical thoughts and strategies. The Feminine Mystique created by Betty Friedan had a profound, lasting effect on American society since it demonstrated the widespread unhappiness of women being confined into household roles, thus women’s talents were being wasted in following societal norms. The women’s liberation movement made its big mark by protesting the Miss America Pageant in 1968

During the waves of feminism many influential and significant movements that depicted the representation of women in a patronizing way. Whether it began in the 1970’s or the 1990’s these decades both held its own on the matters of oppression and the exploitation of women. Rape culture as well as women’s clothing options were twisted into making these decades some of the most influential for women of all times. From the way women were dressed, to celebrities standing out, rape culture, or movements for women, controversy was created throughout these decades to put a dent in women’s history and truly impact women’s lives.

The study of why women artists have systematically been erased from history and why currently the exhibition of women's art is not valued as much as the male artists' continues. There have been many theories behind the eradication of women artists from history. At the beginning of the Women's Liberation Movement, an art historian by the name of Linda Nochlin published an article called, "Why have there been no great women artists?" In here article, she addressed her own question offering one of the first consciously feminist challenges to the established canons of art history. Her query proved to be a rallying cry for women artists in the fervent days of the Women's Liberation movement and offered fragments of a manifesto to women artists, and others, intent on reexamining and ultimately restructuring the discipline (Morse, 1992). Nochlin argues that contemporary feminists contend that there is a different "greatness" between men's art and women's art. This view of art undermines the general discipline. It categorizes its value in order to give it a higher classification among gender. Many women are trying to delve back into history and recapture any trace of artistic women in order to document and arrange their

In the today’s society, it may appear that women’s rights have been propelled forward by equal opportunity sanctions. However, taking a more concise look at different spectrums, such as the art world, it appears that many women are still being snubbed despite their artistic abilities. In

After reading a book on various feminist philosophies, I evaluated Annie Liebovitz's book and collection of photographs entitled Women according to my interpretation of feminist philosophy, then used this aesthetic impression to evaluate the efficacy of feminist theories as they apply toward evaluating and understanding art.

The Guerilla Girls are a women’s activist art group. They are masked women who came together to make change in the world of art and women’s involvement in society. GG emerged in 1985 and still are active today in New York after 30 years of the emergence of the group. The Guerilla Girls used posters with real statistics to show awareness of sexism in the art world and the discrimination of women in politics as well as in the mass media. The Guerrilla Girls spread awareness of sexism in art, discrimination in politics and the mass media through their workshops, performances, and posters.

When one hears the word “feminist”, many different things may come to mind. One may think of the “bra burning” feminists of the 1960s or the “riot grrrl” feminists of the 1990s. It can bring to mind issues such as abortion, birth control, and unfair wages. There are many different aspects of feminism, some of which are understood only by those involved in the movement. But like most things people are passionate about, feminism has held a strong place in music since its very beginning, and can be seen in its festivals, its politics, and in the average American’s everyday life.