The other night, I was fishing through my cabinet to find the plastic gloves that I use for washing dishes.  When I grabbed them out of the cabinet, I accidentally knocked down the box of sponges my mom had left there the night before.  As I reached to grab the box off the kitchen floor, I noticed the advertisement placed on the front cover. It depicted a mother standing next to her child, cleaning a window.  It read “This mother’s day, get back to the job that really matters”. Ideas that women are supposed to be home, with their kids valuing their “job” that “really matters,” still exist in society. This made me fish through my other items in my house.  Astonishingly, the cover of a box of easy bake potatoes that I found in the pantry, read “so easy a husband can do it,” implying that the female is usually responsible for cooking for the family, and the husband is usually incapable of doing so, as it is not his job.  This was not coincidental. These simplistic roles of cooking and cleaning devalues a womens capability while placing men on a pedestal of power and knowledge. With powerlessness, society has placed women on a stage permitting extreme amounts of judgement ranging from every stroke of makeup, every outfit and every hairstyle, that is all looked upon with close attention.  In a time when the portrayal of a powerful woman was not desired in art, female artists have made groundbreaking attempts to point out these societal problems and bring rise to women’s equality.

The Kneeling women by Camille Claudel

This sculpture places more emphasis on the women and less on the male. Males usually dominate the sculpture- muscular, larger ect (eg. Kouros greek art)…  Here the man is not powerful as he is being dragged by the woman to the ground.

The Chess Game (1555)

In this piece, woman are the shown playing chess, a game of logic and critical thinking, that they were seen to lack.  However, they are still uncomfortably clothed and dressed extremely consivertively, but artist’s message is a step in the right direction.  

Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird by Frida Kahlo

Shows the Imperfections of woman also known as “jolie laide.” Breakthrough in not all women being the same, there shouldn’t be an ideal look.  

-women is powerful– not afraid to show identity, though society may reject it

-dark shading of eyebrows, mustache

-she is drawn directly centered– center of attention, center of importance

The Father (1920) by Hannah Hoch

Here, Hoch is cutting through male-dominated society, with the medium of a collage.    A collage implies cutting through, and pasting onto a sheet of paper in a disorderly manner.  It mirrors the situation of anger felt by women who are seen as unequal. Additionally, the artist places male authority heads onto a woman’s body… there is reversal of gendered “roles” here.

DADA-Dance (1919-1921) by Hannah Hoch

Distortions of scale of female body, rejected the “ideal” feminine body.

Das ewig Weibliche by Hannah Hoch

The piece below demonstrates that women in society are thought to be “doll- like”.  Their bodies are mangled and cut out and pasted on a piece of paper, which adopts a very chaotic, yet angry tone, drawing a parallel to the feelings of women in society.  Several eyes are pasted on the paper, entailing that women are constantly judged in society, based on beauty standards (nails, shoes, hair, makeup) , but also gives the idea of the reversal of the “status quo.”  Here the women are looking at the audience, and quite possibly judge the audience for a change. The medium is important as the force of cutting pictures shows anger