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An essay about female oppression in society
An essay about female oppression in society
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In her “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” excerpt from Women, Art, and Power, Linda Nochlin asserts that female artists have been historically prevented from obtaining the same level of artistic mastery and thus success as their male counterpart due to the way in which both educational and social institutions are structured. She then further concludes that it is the situational circumstances in which a woman artist finds herself part of, and not the actual nature of her intelligence and talent, that provides an answer as to why no great female artists exist. Supporting her arguments, Nochlin states that academic and social institutes impose their own perspective of reality onto the people they govern. Women artists, for instance,
During the 1940s and 1950s women artists were not always appreciated and seen as polished educated women artist. As an inspiring painter, printmaker and art teacher Florence McClung accomplished many awards in her life time, faced a difficult period of discrimination towards women artist, and faced exclusion by printmaker companies. On the other hand, McClung did not let anything impede her great achievements.
After the success of antislavery movement in the early nineteenth century, activist women in the United States took another step toward claiming themselves a voice in politics. They were known as the suffragists. It took those women a lot of efforts and some decades to seek for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her essay “The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics,” Ellen Carol Dubois notes some hardships American suffragists faced in order to achieve the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Along with that essay, the film Iron-Jawed Angels somehow helps to paint a vivid image of the obstacles in the fight for women’s suffrage. In the essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” Ruth Milkman highlights the segregation between men and women at works during wartime some decades after the success of women suffrage movement. Similarly, women in the Glamour Girls of 1943 were segregated by men that they could only do the jobs temporarily and would not able to go back to work once the war over. In other words, many American women did help to claim themselves a voice by voting and giving hands in World War II but they were not fully great enough to change the public eyes about women.
Women no longer have to follow a given path of a domesticated life lived behind her husband’s pant cuff. So one would wonder why the increase in women composers has not happened as did in other areas such as literature and the visual arts. According to Kerry Andrew of theguardian.com, there is a decline in confidence in teenage girls to compose and the issue must be addressed with education and “if girls are presented with examples of successful female creators in all genres, they might view composition as a viable profession for themselves.” The promotion of composition as a profession and the use of women examples in curriculum will serve to foster this change.
The androcentric view of history often fails to acknowledge the achievements of notable women who have made profound impacts that have revolutionized the way in which we see the world, as well as the universe. Although the modernized 21st century society is more apt to recognize the achievements of women with an equivocal perspective with men, it was not always so. During the early 20th century, women were consistently denied equality with men due to a perverse androcentric, male-dominated perspective that deemed women as subordinate and insignificant. This androcentric perspective limited the opportunities available to women at the time, leaving them only with domestic occupations that were deemed acceptable for women such as nurses, teachers or clerics. Very few women aspired for higher education, and even fewer achieved it. There were very few colleges that accepted women at the time, save for those erected for women alone. It is because of this, women rarely e...
Women in popular music have created a tremendous history in the wake of feminism. They have made their presence visible by identifying themselves as feminists. Being a woman was hard during that stage. Women were not allowed to do many things due to gender inequality such as the right to vote and to own a property. Therefore, from that moment onwards, women decided to stand up and make some changes. During the early stage of feminism, women developed their skills in popular music to create awareness. They associate popular music with feminism. Although there were racial issues between the black and white during that time, both sides continued to establish in different ways, through different genres of music. Black women focused on ‘black genres’ such as blues, jazz, and gospel, whereas white women performed in musical theatres. Female artists such as Lilian Hardin, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Nina Simone were among the notable exceptions of female instrumentalists during feminism. In this essay, I will assess feminism focusing on the second-wave.
...witty comical banter helps spread the understanding of the underlying themes behind the humor. It makes it easier for the artists to connect with the audience about feminism without an aggressive and hostile approach to the work. I believe viewers are more likely to communicate upon the works of the Guerrilla Girls with one another in society when they take on a more comedic approach. This investigation has examined the Guerrilla Girls through direct connection to the inequalities of compliance of power over women in the art world. Several themes were highlighted within society that reinstated these cultural norms of gender and sex within the institutions of art. With a variety of forms used by the Guerrilla Girls to redefine women's identity in history they were able to break down such barriers that stood in the way which denied the prosperity of female artists.
...field women had that power is in domestic arts. Women admire sharing their talents with an audience in different ways, whether it is theater, performing a song, ballet dancing, conducting an orchestra or being on television. Eileen Marie Moore shows discipline, excellence and success in her all-age field today. Amy Beach was the first woman to compose a symphony and Clara Schumann was the first woman be publicly accepted as a woman musician. These women opened doors for aspiring and existing women composers and performers to gain recognition, regardless of the culture. A tribute for Amy Beach, Michael Anthony quoted “Being a woman hadn’t held her back as a musician.” The confidence these women portrayed for music was tremendous. Determined to succeed in male dominance category is a challenge, but having the resilience and purpose to keep going, is what counts.
Throughout history society has been controlled by men, and because of this women were exposed to some very demanding expectations. A woman was expected to be a wife, a mother, a cook, a maid, and sexually obedient to men. As a form of patriarchal silencing any woman who deviated from these expectations was often a victim of physical, emotional, and social beatings. Creativity and individuality were dirty, sinful and very inappropriate for a respectful woman. By taking away women’s voices, men were able to remove any power that they might have had. In both Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” and Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”, we see that there are two types of women who arise from the demands of these expectations. The first is the obedient women, the one who has buckled and succumbed to become an empty emotionless shell. In men’s eyes this type of woman was a sort of “angel” perfect in that she did and acted exactly as what was expected of her. The second type of woman is the “rebel”, the woman who is willing to fight in order to keep her creativity and passion. Patriarchal silencing inspires a bond between those women who are forced into submission and/or those who are too submissive to maintain their individuality, and those women who are able and willing to fight for the ability to be unique.
In 1971, Linda Nochlin issued her article "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? This thought of stylish virtuoso, says Nochlin, is fiction. Workmanship is once in a while delivered totally by the craftsman for the possibility of individual expression. Couple of identifiers in contemporary craftsmanship have been as laden as the term women 's activist workmanship. What does it mean, who characterizes it, and how can it identify with the past achievements of the women 's activist development?
This is a misconception because every great artist needs to be nurtured and trained. The fact that we don’t have a great Eskimo artist, as Nochlin points out, is not because there is no talent in the Eskimos, but because talent has not been cultivated. When institutions discriminated on the basis of sex, very talented women were excluded from the celebrated art schools. As such, to answer the question “why have there been no great women artists?” the blame lies squarely with societal institutions and the inequities that they promoted. Women artists were very talented but were not given the necessary support and encouragement that they needed in order to
Despite the significant influence that lead to her future career in art, Ringgold reported that she was also impacted by the racism, sexism, and segregation that she had to experience in her everyday life. Positivity and hardships both helped shaped Ringgold’s successful art career in due time.
Throughout Western history it was known to have this Patriarchal system in which the men are the head of the family, and community, during which these spheres between the male and female were divided, each having their own set of roles: the male in the public view and the women in the private view. The men worry about what is going on outside the home like politics, money, control over property while the women take care of what happens on the inside of the home doing things like taking care of the children and doing the house work. With these roles set in place the women have had a hard time being respected because of this Patriarchy.
People use art to display the beauty found in the world and, because of this, women have been subject to objection through paintings and photography all throughout history. Whether it is a commissioned oil painting from the 17th century or an advertisement from the 20th century, there will always be some type of image that objectifies women. In the book Ways of Seeing John Berger states that a woman “comes to consider the surveyor and surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman,” (Ways of Seeing 46). Berger is saying that women know they are seen as an object purely because they are women. Women in paintings and photography are objectified for the pleasure of the viewer, they are illustrated for the surveyor’s specifications, so in essence the picture is a better representation of the owner than the subject.
In the course of human events, women have been subjected to being seen as far less superior than men. Women through most of history have never been seen as equals to men and seen as pitiful and slave like, but women have tried to change the views of society and become equal. Feminist art was a major contributor in helping women fight these societal views during the feminist movement. Many talented women artist banded together during the 1960-1970s to be able fight the societal view as a woman. Their art was sometimes not accepted by society for exploring subjects that were not accepted for that time. They fought to make their topics they talked about socially accepted. Artists such as Judy Chicago, Barbara Kruger, and guerilla girls helped spark and shaped the feminist art movement by
Have you ever wondered if there could possibly be overwhelming obstacles in the way of someone being truly successful in life? Some may witness friends or loved ones not developing to their fullest potential in their profession because of these unobtainable obstacles holding them back. In “Professions for Women,” by Virginia Woolf, Woolf gives a speech to a group of women explaining why they must overcome certain things in order to be successful in their future professional careers. In speaking to this group of determined young women, Woolf explains how horrendous it may be to have your own thoughts or beliefs while living in a society said to be dominated by males. She