Teens/adults - Lesson 4: Art seen through the lens of gender

I am writing this in the year 2020. Recent history has witnessed a profound shift in the conversation regarding gender equality that has affected many aspects of social discourse, including the ways we make, exhibit, and discuss art.

Following the feminist movement of the 1970s, a group of female artists began fighting sexism in the art world. These anonymous artists named Guerrilla Girls protested, for example, the under-representation of women artists at major museums and galleries by staging demonstrations, distributing printed materials, and making art themselves in reaction to sexism. For example, in 2014, the Guerrilla Girls pointed to this data, “less than 3% of the artists in the Modern Art section of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art are women, but 83% of the nudes are female, even though 51% of visual artists today are women.”

In 2006, a sexual harassment survivor named Tarana Burke used the phrase “Me Too” on social media for the first time. By 2017, the actress Alyssa Milano suggested on Twitter, “If all the women who have ever been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.‘ as a status, then we give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” Millions of people responded, and an international movement gained strength.

#MeToo brought the shocking issue into every home. And as we look to interpret art today, all of us—men, women, and non-binary people—find entirely new vistas appearing in the conversation about art because of it. We are living in a time of tremendous reappraisal, soul-searching, and questioning throughout our society, including in art.

The lens of gender

Today, it is almost inconceivable that art not be viewed with a lens of gender. In the 70s, this was a somewhat marginalized movement—which is strange given the percentages of the population directly affected—but certainly no longer.

With that background, what is Feminist Art Criticism and how does that affect you?

Much of the discussion began with Linda Lochlin’s essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”. The 1971 pioneering essay by an American art historian explored how institutions have created obstacles for women to succeed in art. It was a wake-up call.

The more widely the larger landscape of art was investigated, the starker the disparities became: Women have had less access to art education and therefore to decision-making roles in museums and galleries. Female artists’ work has sold for less money than their male peers. They have been under-represented in institutions, less likely to receive commissions and public notice.

The bias plays throughout art history with women repeatedly omitted from surveys, chronologies, retrospectives, and published histories. The kinds of art that have been most valued by institutions—heroic-sized paintings and sculpture—under-represents the whole of women’s creative works, which have been marginalized as less “important.” And on and on it goes.

I am a man. I am only partially aware of the full extent of the issues, but I suggest to you that they are problems for all of us. If we have learned anything from the last century of social struggle, it is that prejudice against one is prejudice aimed at us all.

To the extent you can, look at an art work or object inhabiting feminist thought. Immerse yourself in the issues of fairness. It might require you to rewire inherited attitudes.

What are the questions a woman would ask about the work in order to explore it fully? As art history is being rewritten—and it is—art criticism is, too.