An art professor of mine took me aside today to talk to me about one of my papers. This particular paper was on Eva Hesse and the presence of women in the art world. "There were actually many women involved in the art world throughout history. Did you know that the portraiture artist for Luis XIV was a woman?" she said, "You know, you really should concentrate on the strong, accomplished women throughout history rather than rubbing people's noses in it [inequality]." I thought about this for a second and then asked her "So, Louis XIV's portraiture artist, what was her name?" The professor stood there, a little taken aback. She couldn't come up with an answer. But she regained her composure and said "I just think that there are more constructive ways to go about it than just being angry. You should be more positive, and not just spend your time pointing out things that are wrong..." she kept on talking in that same vane for a while, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was getting angry.
Feminism is not about making people feel comfortable. Feminism is not about being positive. Feminism is not about talking about how cool Susan B. Anthony was. Feminism is about calling the world on it's bullshit and calling for something better. Yes, there were many many women in the art world all throughout history. But their work has been dismissed, ignored, and copied by men. And this is not something that is unique to the art world but pervades most of western society. We can dress it up all we want by touting the exceptions to the rule (Mary Cassat, Georgia O'Keefe to name a privlaged few), but ignoring this background of oppression, we would not be paying homage to the greatness of what they accomplished. Sexism, classism, heterosexism, and raceism are not nice things. Why should we dress them up that way?
I am not whining. I am not beating a dead horse. I am not going to clean up your history so you feel better about it. And I am not a nice feminist.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: "Nice" Feminism.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/10778
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
I have a hard time taking your professor seriously, as either an art history expert or as an academic in general.
Nobody who's even mildly socially "progressive" who has had any professional contact with art history (hell, even with the current professional art world) would have the gall to mouth off for a half hour about how "you shouln't make things seem as bad as they were/are; you need to focus on the minority of women artists who's names we know."
Yes, we know there have been women elites.
But they have been the exception, not the rule (and have had to make sacrifices their male counterparts did not). Women's art gets relegated far more to "folk art" and communal art in the same way that non-European/indigenous' communities' work is magically, happily communal and doesn't "need" named individual artists like the big bad Euro men (who, incidentally, achieved fame and fortune and RESPECT women's and non-Europeans' art never did).
There's a difference between being kind and being nice. I am a kind feminist, but I am not a nice one.
This was really well said. Thank you.
thanks, this was my first blog post here.
As far as I am concerned, people have been saying shit nicely for years.
It's about time we got loud.
Well said.
I SOMEWHAT agree with your professor. I haven't read your paper, so I don't know what tone it had or what you said. However, I think there is a difference between being loud and being angry and the avenues you take being loud, angry, nice, etc. Sometimes presenting facts that make your case with a tone that is neither angry nor "nice: is the strongest or "loudest" thing you can do. Also, the purpose/audience of any piece of writing determines both what you say and the tone. Again, I have not read the paper and I don't know what the context of the assignment was, but if it was a certain common type of very academic, literature review type of document, a very academic tone should be applied, i.e. objective. Also, if you can use the evidence you've found in the literature to make recommendations for the future, all the better than simply being angry about the past.
This is the rantiest part of the essay:
The history of women in art in the western world is one that is fraught with suppression, exploitation and sexism. As one activist feminist artist group, the Guerrilla Girls, addressed on one of their famous public art billboard, as of 2004 less than 3% of the artists featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art are women, but 83% of the nudes depicted are female. The Guerrilla girls cheekily ask “Do women have to be naked to get into museums?” As a woman artist, Eva Hesse overcame sexism in the art industry while at the same time making a powerful statement with her art: That textile art is not something that is merely a craft, it is something that can have the same aesthetic value and meaning as any other medium.
More often than not, art by women ends up being dismissed as decorative art rather than being taken seriously for its aesthetic and representational content. Oftentimes, in textile art and medieval tapestry especially, men are given credit for creating the design while it is assumed the women did only the grunt work of making the fabric. Because of this tendency to either disregard or misattribute works, women have been nearly completely eliminated from the history of western art.
OK, a couple things I see:
"The history of women in art in the western world is one that is fraught with suppression, exploitation and sexism."
This is your opinion, which is not backed up with evidence. If you back it up later in the paper, it is more appropriate to state your intention to do so off the bat. Whether your opinion has merit or not, as you are not an authority on the subject and this is an academic paper, you have to show that you have formed your opinion based on the conclusions you've drawn from the cited authorities.
Also the language is not objective. "Fraught with" is very subjective- there is no real meaning to the word "fraught" as you have described it. It would be less "angry" and more academic to say, "The feminist girl group, the Guerilla Girls once asked, 'do women have to be naked to get into museums?' This question stems from findings that 3% of the artists featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art are women, but 83% of the nudes depicted are female [add citation- not to the guerilla girls, but to their original source of the statistics]. Despite the challenges facing female artists, Eva Hesse..."
I know nothing about the subject matter, but here do you see that this is not angry, but makes the same point. You don't have to SAY that the art world is historically sexist- the EVIDENCE you present says it for you. The audience- your professor- understands the implication without you having to be explicit in your opinion.
The second paragraph is also not backed by evidence (unless you have omitted your citations here) but you take great liberties with statements such as "more often than not" and "often times" - that is the same as "fraught"-- it is your opinion and meaningless to the purpose of the paper, which is, I think, to illustrate the challenges facing Eva Hesse and how she overcame them.
So, I believe that your professor is not telling you to be a "nice feminist." I think she is merely suggesting that in academics, a well-constructed argument is "loud." I think she is criticizing your writing style rather than your brand of feminism. I would agree that the language and tone used in these two paragraphs is not appropriate for an academic paper.
That's not to say that you can't be angry in an opinion piece, rather than a literature review/ term paper. But even then when you make claims as to the pervasiveness of sexism in art, you would still have to back it up.
This is just my 2 cents. I made many similar mistakes while learning the process as an undergrad. I'm not trying to be critical or prove a point, I'm just explaining why I agree with your professor, based on the limited info presented.
okay, I'll admit it, I was being kind of lazy with this paper. It was a brief response paper to an article about Eva Hesse and the bulk of it (which is not posted here) centers on other topics, such as textiles, which is the focus of this class. Most of my information about women in the art world came from the Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion to Art History. I suggest you read it.
Is The history of women in art in the western world is one that is fraught with suppression, exploitation and sexism really just an opinion? I think it's pretty factual to claim that the history of women in general in the west is "fraught with suppression, exploitation and sexism."
Maybe this is just me, but in high school, research papers were supposed to be objective. But my college professors wanted more thoughtful, opinionated papers. That's what good academic writing is about, right? And I don't understand how you're not seeing the evidence that the history of women in the art world is full of sexism. Are you someone who also sees no evidence of sexism in everyday life?
I don't know the name of the woman was who painted for Louis XIV, but one art history class I took, I remember being told about Elizabeth Vigee Lebrun and her husband. (Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun is one of the few remembered female artists; she is especially famous for being Marie Antoinette's official portrait artist).
I don't know her husband's name offhand, and I'm too lazy to look him up; but long story short: Vigee-Lebrun's work has withstood the test of history. Her husband, who, at the time, was accepted as a far better artist has not kept his name.
In fact, the authenticity of all of his best work was recently called into question, when most of it was attributed to his wife's repertoire (as the result of a modern study of painting style): he had, apparently, simply signed his name in the corner after she had finished the painting.
I could possibly be corrected on this, but I think Artemesia Gentileschi did much of her (currently forgotten) husband's best work also.
And, just to actually respond to your post: I just graduated with a visual arts degree (studio, but I had to take an equal number of art history courses), and in all honesty: I think your professor gave you terrible advice. To write about such a topic "nicely" (ie, dance about the subject without taking a stance) simply weakens your argument. Maybe you're still learning how to write essays or something, and could write about that topic with less passion and more coherence with practice... but don't start watering down your arguments by being "nice" or "positive". Professors hate to admit it, but art history is (almost) nothing but strong opinions.
It's always a good thing to remember and look up to those individuals who have overcome adversity to obtain success. But not when looking up to those few means refusing to look down at those who continue to be oppressed.
I hear conservatives and libertarians bringing up this argument time and again- if so-and-so woman can be successful, any other woman could too, and so the only difference between this woman and other women is that other women aren't working hard enough. It's almost an oversight of statistics and their importance. Yes, to rise above oppression, this woman had to show strength, hard work, perseverance. But she also had to have luck. The work we do to help all women doesn't fight women's characters, to give them all more strength and a better work ethic, it fights against those odds.
Fighting against oppression is inherently nice. Especially if you have to take crap for doing it.