The Subversion of the Opression and Objectification of Women Through Art

It is no surprise that women have been oppressed since the beginning of human civilization. Women have been denied access to the same job opportunities, they have been pushed to hate their natural bodies, they have been told that they are generally incapable of doing things on their own, and they have been sexualized and objectified to a point of danger for their own mental health. Although, there is no denying that the fight for gender equality has come a long way. Women now have equal voting rights, they may choose to take birth control, they have equal access to job listings, they have equal pay, they can get abortions, and they have many other liberties. However, there is still a lot of work to be done. One of the most notable ways in which women are continuously oppressed is through the ridiculous amount of sexualization and objectification that they endure. This objectification is continued and supported through its appearance across every form of media, photography and art obvio...

Feminism can be broken down into three major waves. The first wave, which was took place in the 19th and early 20th century, revolved around white women gaining the right to vote. Although it was an important step for white women, it was extremely exclusive of women of color and also did not establish any rights for the female population besides the white woman’s vote. However, this was a major step beginning the fight for gender equality. The second wave of feminism, which began in the early 1960’s and lasted two decades, opened the conversation of gender equality through focusing on sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, official legal inequalities, domestic violence and marital rape, engendered rape-crisis centers and women's shelters, and brought about changes in custody laws and divorce law. The third wave of feminism, which began in the 1990’s, and ended around 2008, broadened feminist theory even further, through working to  abolish gender-role stereotypes ...

Feminist artists subvert the sexualization and objectification of the women through distorting the female body and representing it in a nonconventional way. “The thin body ideal refers to the European concept of a slender female with a small physique and little body fat. ‘Thin-body ideal occurs as a result of social pressure to attain a lean gure, placed on individuals by the media, family, peers, and interpersonal encounters’ (Stice & Shaw, 1994, p. 289). The media displays this through messages in popular magazines, lms, and television. For example, ‘in magazines, weight loss messages are often placed next to messages about one’s sex life, implying that weight loss will lead to a better sex life,’ while “‘on television shows, women are judged as romantic or sexual partners based on their appearance’” (McKay, 2). Ana Mendieta’s Untitled (Glass on Body Imprints) works to subvert beauty standards for the female body through distorting it and representing it in a way that is purpos...

Fig 1. Untitled (Glass on Body Imprints) by Ana Mendieta. "Ana Mendieta." Artsy, February 2018, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/ana-mendieta-untitled-glass-on-body-imprints-8. April 9, 2019.

Fig 2. Bird Transformation by Ana Mendieta. "Ana Mendieta." Artsy, 2018, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/ana-mendieta-bird-transformation. April 9, 2019.

Artists subvert the oppression and objectification of the female body through highlighting the issue of sexual violence and the sexually submissive role that women are “supposed” to have. “The depiction of women as sex objects who are also victims of aggression inculcates the idea that submission is a desirable trait in a woman. Such images speak directly to the hostility toward women that exists within American culture.” (Stankiewicz, 581). In Ellen von Unwerth’s Girl In Chain , the idea of sexual violence is definitely prevalent. The girl is depicted with her hair disheveled, her bra falling off, her make up dark and smudged, and she has a collar connected to a chain around her neck. In addition, she has an equally scared and seductive look on her face. The photograph highlights the sexually submissive role that women are expected to fill, and the desire that is attached to this role. Unwerth almost tricks the viewer into sexualizing the girl themselves, even before realizing how ob...

Fig 3. Girl in chain by Ellen von Unwerth "Ellen von Unwerth" Artsy, 2018, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/ellen-von-unwerth-girl-in-chain. April 9, 2019.

Fig 4. Embrace, #48 by Eikoh Hosoe. " Eikoh Hosoe " Artsy, 2018, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/eikoh-hosoe-embrace-number-48. April 9, 2019.

Artists subvert the objectification of women through challenging the audience to become aware of the their own inherent desire to objectify the female body. What exactly is objectification theory? As Szymanski states, “Objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) postulates that many women are sexually objectified and treated as an object to be valued for its use by others. SO occurs when a woman’s body or body parts are singled out and separated from her as a person and she is viewed primarily as a physical object of male sexual desire.” (Szymanski, 7-8). Marina Abramovic is an example of an artist that worked to expose this objectification theory through challenging the audience to recognize their own internalized desire to objectify. She opened an exhibit in 1974 called Rhythm 0, in which she placed 72 objects  on a table, and stood in the middle of the room, with the instructions, “I am an object. You can do whatever you want to do with me”. Through allowing the pub...

“Marina Abramovic on Rhythm 0 (1974).” Vimeo. Uploaded by Marina Abramovic Institute, Thursday August 8, 2013, 4:08 AM EST, https://vimeo.com/71952791 . Accessed Thursday, April 25, 2019.

In conclusion, artists work to subvert the oppression and objectification of the female body through highlighting the issue of sexual violence, representing the female body in an unconventional way, and challenging the audience to become aware of their desire to objectify women. In this curation, we can see all of these approaches through the various works of Ana Mendieta, Ellen von Unwerth, Eikoh Hosoe and Marina Abramovic. Many artists entrench the objectification and oppression of women through romanticizing women when they fit into the cookie cutter gender roles that they are expected to fit. However, these artists take an opposite approach through deviating from societal standards of beauty, through exposing the oppressive nature of female sexuality under a male gaze, and through executing social experiments to prove a point to the audience. So going forward, we must make an effort to be aware of how the female body is being represented in art, and how this representation contri...

Source #1: Stankiewicz, Julie. “Women as Sex Objects and Victims in Print Advertisements.” Sex Roles, vol. 58, no. 2008, pp. 579- 589. doi:10.1007/s11199-007-9359-1 Summary: The article focuses on the sexualization of women, and the portrayal of women as sexual victims within various popular advertisements. Through the analyzation of various topics (women as vitims, violence against women, sexual objectification of women, etc.), the article worked to highlight the extent to which women are simultaneously sexualized and seen as victims within popular advertisements. Evaluation: As the source is a scientific journal article, it is free of obvious biases that an article of a different form may have. Although, the women who conducted the research are both very credible. Lots of great points and specific research was brought up, but they did not examine men in their research, and this may lead to the article not being fully informed. Asses: This source is helpful to me in my rese...