Exhibitions in London

Today I visited some galleries in London as additional research in order to gain a wider perspective on the topic of feminism. I went to the Tate Britain, Tate Modern and the Spirit of Womanhood exhibition at the gallery@OXO.

In the Tate Britain I saw the 'Women and Work' Artist's Room, which showed the results of Margaret Harrsion's, Kay Hunt's and Mary Kelly's study of the working conditions of women in a metal box factory in Bermondsey.

There was no camera motion in the film, which emphasised the actions carried out by the women/men. I found the table next to the two screens a lot more interesting though, since I could make sense of the titles of the jobs a lot easier than of the actions shown on the film, since I'd never seen them before. 

The next piece was a series of framed photographs of hands performing a job, and below written the name of the job and how many women and men had this job. Below are some photographs I found striking, because of the nature of the job, or the inequality in the numbers of men and women who had this job. 

I noticed the rhetoric used in this piece - the number of women working is recorded in neutral numbers, but the numbers of men is recorded in either numbers, or simply "NO MEN", when they could have also used "0 MEN". The phrase "NO MEN" has a slightly aggressive undertone, and shows that this is no neutral piece of work, as well as clearly showing it's intention. The use of the word "NO" also emphasises the fact that no men had a particular job, a lot more than the phrase "0 MEN" would have emphasised the same fact.

The next piece was a text-based one, giving the reader information on the day to day routine of working women. This piece struck me, as it made me realise how much time these women had to spend doing housework on top of their paid jobs, and how tightly structured their days were. I also noticed how most of them needed about an hour to get to work - where factories out of town? Did the women have to walk to the factory? Seeing these made me realise why women might not have been so keen to get a job, since it would have made their lives a lot more stressful. This piece also clearly showed that house work and looking after a family is a job on its own, and if equality is to be achieved, a couple that decides to have children also needs to equally split the time to take care of children and do the house work. 

The adjacent room displayed Sylvia Pankhurst's work. She did designs for the WSPU and portraits of female workers and women. Below is a pin by the WSPU that she designed, as well as the "angel of freedom" which was more commonly used. All of these designs show the WSPU's colours; purple, white and green, which symbolise dignity, purity and hope. I prefer the triangular design, mainly because it is genderless. It makes the feminist movement appeal to a wider group of people - people of either gender that are in favour of equality. It also shows all three virtues leading to a peak, the utopia, when equality is achieved. I don't quite see the same symbolism carried forward in the later design of a female angel blowing a trumpet. 

Apologies for the bad quality of the photos, these documents were displayed in a horizontal glass case which made it rather difficult to get decent photographs.

The next piece I wanted to see was Joshua Reynolds painting "The Age Of Innocence", but sadly I just missed it by a couple of days. Instead, I spent some time sketching, and looking at the rest of the BP Spotlight collection. 

(Roger Hilton, Oi Yoi Yoi, 1963, oil and charcoal on canvas)

This painting is visually very striking because of it's crude depiction of the female body. The breasts are amplified, and both arms and legs are extended and go off the canvas. The female body works as a negative space which separates the blocks of colour. When looking at the title, this piece gains more meaning, as the title "Oi Yoi Yoi" is a sound you would expect someone of the older generation makes when surprised, or excited. 

I also really liked Martin Creed's installation called "Work No. 227, The Lights Going On And Off". Every time the lights turned on or off, there was a loud thump, like a really slow heartbeat. The room had a very calming atmosphere, and the rhythmic sound was very relaxing. I don't think the sound was intentional, it was just the normal clicking of the lights being turned on and off. I took a short video my experience of the installation.

(The Three Dancers, Pablo Picasso, 1925, oil on canvas)

(Rachel Lowe, Letter to an Unknown Person no. 2, 1998)

(Rachel Lowe, Letter to an Unknown Person no. 2, 1998)

Rachel Lowe, Letter to an Unknown Person no. 2, 1998, Film, Super 8 mm, 1 min 5 secs

This piece of video art does not relate to the theme of my FMP, but I really liked the piece. The lines drawn onto the piece of glass trick the audience into thinking they are letters, and challenge the audience to try and read some of the words, when really the "writing" is unreadable. The background in the video had a sweeping motion, which suggests that the glass is a train window. If it were a train window, the graffiti would be an act of vandalism. Does the artist say that all graffiti are letters to someone else? Does she try to give graffiti more meaning?


Charlie Crxsh

These Boots are made for Walkin'

A friend at uni recommended me to watch the music video of the song These Boots are made for walkin' by Nancy Sinatra and the cover version by Jessica Simpson. She said that the original song and video was very empowering for women, but the cover version was the exact opposite. After just watching both music videos, I have to disagree. I think both music videos are showing women as sex objects. The video featuring Nancy Sinatra is just not as explicit because it is from 1966, therefore would not have needed to be as explicit in order to provoke the audience. Both videos show women finding empowerment through being a sex object. It is the appealing looks of both the singers that gives them power. This is the fake-empowerment that has been taking place for a while in our culture. It creates the apparent need for women to become even sexier so they can be the ultimate sex object. The woman might observe some kind of freedom, in exploring her sexuality, but because she does so with an audience, it is not really her exploration but the enjoyment of the audience that is really her main focus. 

 The music video featuring Nancy Sinatra begins with just bare legs walking through the screen. The women are not shown in any kind of position of power. In fact they are not even shown as women, they are just a pair of legs, without a body. Nancy Sinatra's body in the next shot is very carefully positioned in order to look pleasing to an audience. Her position pronounces the length of her legs. Though the jumper-like dress is not very provocative to our eyes, at the time of its original release the length of the dress would have been very provocative to say the least. 

 
 

 

Throughout the song, the dance moves reveals the dancer's underwear, and the dancers move on the spot like flowers, or lie on their backs stretching their legs in the air. The only dance move where they really move forward, not just on the spot, is when they walk. Then however the camera quickly zooms in on their legs, portraying them as simply body parts, not humans. 

In order to find at least some part of the song that would be "empowering women" as my friend had told me, I had a quick look at the lyrics. The woman narrative character is shown to respond the being done wrong by a man. Even though the woman assumes some form of higher position and removes herself from a bad relationship, she only does so in response to being done wrong by a man - ultimately she is still passive and only reacting, not acting. 

I think my friend fell in the trap that our pop culture has been showing us - that women can be powerful, yes, but only when they are also a sex object, that ultimately being a sex object is what empowers a woman. 



   Jessica Simpson's take on the song

















Ultimately, her take on the song is very similar to Nancy Sinatra's, the imagery used in her music video is just a lot more explicit due to the context it was created in. Jessica Simpson is being shown to make the men in a bar almost dribble because she is so attractive. Then, one of the customers slaps her bum, to which she appears to be responding positively at first, only to then hit the man hard across the face. He falls over and into another customer, which sets of a domino reaction, leading to a bar fight.

Even though Jessica Simpsons is shown to be physically overpowering a man, it doesn't quite feel like she is being empowered.

She then proceeds to dance with a range of of other female dancers in way that makes it obvious that it is intended to be found attractive by a male heterosexual typical audience - they are making themselves sex objects. After she just confronted a man who essentially sexually harassed her, Jessica Simpson continues to objectify herself. The car wash scene at the end? Well… that is the cliché way women are being shown as sex objects, isn't it?

Charlie Crxsh

The Differences in Images

The results of searching "man" and "woman" on google images, pinterest, and flickr:

Google images, a biased search engine, shows images ranked by demand. The most searched for images that are also tagged as man show influential public characters, famous actors, but mainly men in suits. The 5 related searches google offers are: Human, Clipart, Standing Up, Symbol and Stickman. For women however, google offers us photographs of women's faces, all but one are young, and all but three are striking a sexual pose. The 5 related searches google offers us here are: Wonder Woman, Standing, Average Woman, Symbol and Silhouette.  Standing and Symbol are the same related searches for both genders. None of the related searches for men offer a comparison like the search "average woman". You can also barely compare the "Stickman" search to the "Silhouette" search. Though both are simple black on white blockings of colour, the Silhouettes are sexual, the stickmen are not. The "Clipart" search shows stylised drawings of male characters, none of which seem sexual in any way. Wonder Woman? The only female superhero in the Justice League? She is still a very sexualised character, dressed in little more than a bathing suit. The "human" search google offers for men is also a rather neutral search, and seems to be more focused on anatomy. 

"A man in a tux to girls is like a woman in lingerie to men" - meaning: a tux, a symbol of authority, success and power is equal to lingerie, "undergarments which are designed to be visually appearing or erotic". This statement means that the only way women can achieve power is through being a sexual object and erotic.

"Be a girl with a mind, a woman with attitude, and a lady with class" "You can't rely on how you look to sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion..." "A woman should never.." 

Instead of visual images like above we get rules for women how to act, how to achieve true beauty (by being a snow white character). These images police behaviour, however they do so in a subtle and sneaky way. 

Model shoots, panoramic landscapes, close ups of faces - the results on flickr are probably the most similar. Still we get a crude anatomical drawing of a man, and nothing comparable for the search "woman". Also noticeable; all the woman are universally attractive according to cultural standard - skinny, symmetrical faces; whereas the men are less so. Come to think of it, is there even a cultural standard of beauty for men?