Various Examples Of Feminist Art example essay topic

Feminism is a movement, which is generally aimed at allowing women to have equal rights with men in every aspect of social life. The main issues of feminist movement today are equality of women in politics and employment. Women never before had equal rights with men in these fields, but today the situation is changing. Some radical feminist ideas rely on the transformation of patriarchal social and economic system into the domination of women in all social hierarchies and by creating a gerontocracy. Feminism can be also viewed as the difference between women's and men's perception of the world and usually claims that the first women's is a right one. This different perception of world can be observed through feminist art.

Originally, it was considered that women were inferior in terms of physical power and mental ability, which resulted into monopolization of power and knowledge by men. Men were developing the world and this had resulted into what we have today including different achievements and problems. It is actually hard to find what form of hierarchy came first patriarchy or gerontocracy. In my opinion, there is no need to seek an answer to this question. However, the interesting thing is to know what was the motive or reason for the creation or gerontocracy.

It is suggested that it was a patriarchal need to secure resources for sexual satisfaction by less energetic older males. It was primarily due to the reason that older and more experienced males could use their cunning over males and females of all ages, while younger males generally relied on physical power over both men and women. Besides, women are physically disadvantaged by their reproductive roles. Western domination of women and nature was conceptually linked into the processes of making them inferior and had mutually reinforced each other. For example, Merchant (op. cit. p. 165) argues that from its beginning the discourse of modern science in the West was informed by imagery that portrayed nature as female. Given women's status this both aided and made erotic the domination of nature for men of science.

Woman was interconnected with the exploration of nature having love for plants and animals. Man was identified with spirit, mind, and power over both, woman and nature. Power must be analyzed as something, which circulates, or rather as something, which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never localized here or there, never in anybody's hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth.

Such different associations can be easily found in various examples of feminist art. In a world where a woman's sphere was defined by their duties of motherhood, child-rearing, and homemaking; the beginnings of industrialization posed specific concerns on the impact that factory work would have on family life, even more specifically on women. The nineteenth-century witnessed a crucial change in the established pattern of society. Women were at crossroads where their domesticity, in the early period of industrialization, became challenged. Women started to enjoy social and economic independence thus creating new pressures not only economically, but also culturally, which made art more popular among women. Women became more interested in different forms of art available during that period of time and made their first attempts to express their vision of world mainly through writing.

Through the XX century women obtained more rights and therefore, were more respected by male part of society. This allowed women art to have more influence and more publicity. Indeed feminism in writing can be found much earlier than in XX century. A classic example can be Jane Eyre, which according to various researchers greatly inspired women in the future to express their feminine feelings and emotions through writing, painting, photography etc.