The Guerrillia Girls (for those of you who are not familiar with them) are a group of anonymous feminst activists / artists fighting against sex discrimination.
This is a video I found on YouTube. It's of two Guerrilla Girls giving a great presentation about women in the arts:
I was shocked to see the negative comments this video recieved:
Eckerson posted, "complain to everyone who agrees with you already, sure to make you feel better about a frivelous cause"
SteveGlaze7 writes, "feminist=dyke"
You can check out more yourself if you'd like.
What do you think about the negative reactions and stereotypes feminists continue to receive?
Do you agree with 'eckerson' that their cause is frivolous?
2 comments:
This is awesome. My new heroes.
I think when someone says the cause is "frivolous" they're saying that they think the fine art world is a load of nonsense anyway, so why bother taking it seriously enough to critique?
One thing I do have to say is that it's kind of silly to go after the MET for having 85% female nudes in its exhibitions. The MET is mostly a museum of antiquities from classical eras, so of course there's going to be way more female nudes than male. This is a valid illustration of sexism throughout history, but not a valid criticism of the MET, or of modern art institutions. It's all fine and good to point out the low percentage of women artists in their MODERN art collections, but even most of that is from around the 1950s or so - and it's unrealistic to expect that all ratios would suddenly be 50/50 now, even IF the MET was a completely unbiased institution.
It's also a misleading juxtaposition. They're comparing all of the nudes in the *entire* museum to the number of female artists in *just* the modern section. That's because there are hardly any nudes in the modern section at all, and my guess is that of the ones that are there, they don't skew female nearly as much, if at all.
I'm sorry to be so critical. I really love what the guerilla girls are doing and what they stand for - but it's quite offensive to me when I see people playing slight-of-hand with statistics, just to make a point. It undermines the whole message, because now I can't help but view all of their other points as suspect.
And some of the examples that they use to make one point, undermine their larger points.
The exhibit at the Brooklyn museum which was funded by Charles Saatchi, for example. This is a good example of how the system is, after all, a massive business scam above all else. But what they don't acknowledge is that it also demonstrates that the business is expanding to include women much more than ever before. The Saatchi exhibit included several (at that time) emerging female artists, including Tracy Emin, Sarah Lucas, Rachel Whiteread, and Jenny Saville, who have gone on to achieve astounding critical and commercial success, especially Tracy Emin, who is one of the biggest names in the art world today, and represented Britain at this year's Venice biennial.
Again, I really love the basis of what GG is trying to do - it's just that some of it is done through misleading trickery, which I think is kind of sad.
And I do think that in the contemporary art world, things are a lot better (gender-wise) than they used to be, and women are finally starting to get their due. Perhaps *because* of the work GG has done. If you go to any of the big biennial exhibitions, or walk into any major gallery, or pick up a leading art magazine, you're just as likely to see a woman artist in a place of prominence as a man. And that's just about the *only* good thing I can say about the Art world right now.
Thanks for your input.
I think when they call the cause frivolous, they just mean it doesn't matter. That the representation of women in the arts doesn't matter; and I disagree with that.
And I agree that things are much better, when it comes to gender, in the art world now than ever before. That's how it should be. But I think there is more work to be done...
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