Research Point - Photography and Feminism 1

Many women photographers have used the medium to critique Patriarchal societies and Feminist issues around class, race, representation, and sexuality. In chapter 6 of Liz Wells' 'Photography - A Critical Introduction' we are asked to read the sections on 'Women's photography, Questions of identity', and 'Identity and the multi-cultural.'  This section breaks down the approaches that Feminist campaigners took in photography and the arts into three broad based areas:

• Examination of ways women have been represented in Western Art.

• Feminist art historians rediscovery of women artists previously ignored.

• How women in art schools, galleries and publishing, asserted a right to have space devoted to contemporary women artists.

In the course notes we are asked:

What part have female artists played in the history of Feminist thought? 


Cindy Sherman
The photographer Cindy Sherman's 'Film Stills' work is well known for its critique of the representation of women in the media. Sherman's work neatly highlights the objectification of women by using her own body to transform herself into a number of female characters that are easily recognisable  - roles we have seen represented many, many, times in films from the past and present. The fact that Sherman's work looks to the viewer like it could almost be stills from those type of movies, shows just how stereotypical and gender defined women's place in a Patriarchal society can be.

Sherman has also made work critiquing the female nude; a genre of Western Art painting that is very problematic from a Feminist standpoint. The term 'nude' being objected to as a polite word to intellectualise and mask the voyeuristic male gaze. Sherman uses mannequins, swapping the plastic body parts around between male and female. She uses provocative poses, exposing orifices and genitalia, putting breasts onto old men's bodies, that create disturbing images that seek to disconnect the male gaze.

Barbara Kruger
Incorporating text or slogans into an artwork is a very powerful way of juxtaposing an image with a thought. Barbara Kruger makes collage, incorporating her text with found photographs, usually advertising shots from print-media. Slogans such as 'I shop, therefore, I am' 'Your comfort is my silence' ' and 'You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men' are very thought provoking pieces of work that incisively critique the Patriarchy from a Feminist perspective.

Raeda Saadeh
In 'Who will make me real?' the artist shows her own body encased from neck to ankle in a cast made from newspaper articles concerning the Palestinian conflict. The artist is reclined in the pose of the 'odalisque' a recognisable genre of 'exotic' foreign women in Western Art. In doing so, Saadeh not only looks at the representation of women, but imperialist views on race and gender.