I really enjoyed the topic, I love art and have especially enjoyed learning about art in classes at BMCC. I was very intrigued by the Women the 20th Century Contemporary Art scene and I have read on about how many women were doing ground breaking work that were never known of publicly, especially not as their make counterparts were.

The article Why Artistic Activism did not speak to me to be honest. I don’t feel like I came out of it with a real understanding of what Artistic Activism is, no more than I already had figured on my own. I would’ve loved some more specific examples of the art and what it has done, what change and effect it has made. I guess the quote from Audre Lorde sums up my same feeling about the article, “Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.” I needed a name to the nameless.

I do think that art as activism is alive and well. It is important because it does communicate messages in a way that, although I wouldn’t agree is always less violent or more peaceful, it’s another form of communication to hopefully have an opportunity to access more people. I think as much as there are some people who need to express themselves through art, there are some people who can digest meaning and understanding better through seeing it in art. Art can be displayed in forums where the viewers who are likely to see it might not go to a more extreme display of activism.

In Why Artistic Activism, “#9 Artistic Activism is Peaceful and Persuasive”, I have often know activist art to be very overt and shocking. I did find it interesting that wasn’t mentioned. It is true that there is no acts of violence, but in the nature of a lot of the art there is a violence. Sometimes that violence is the message. So I actually always have found Artistic Activism to sometimes be very hard to swallow and possibly not the best way to capture all eyes and ear in a way that will help spread a message peacefully.

Either way, it a very great topic and always good to start to think about the voices around me and try to have a new perspective on things.

So, on one hand, in the film Period: End of Sentence, we see women’s lives being extremely effected by lack of tools. The tool being technology to make a pad, something so simple that can give such a huge impact and return. The women can now continue school, get an education, work, make money, help others. As a result they start to have agency in life, feel a part of, feel useful and be useful. The lack thereof was simply before of the negligence of them as a lesser equal. Because of their anatomy and menstruation as well as class structure and money, these women are unable to take part in life. Of course patriarchy plays a huge role in this, the technology to make pads has existed for a very long time. The overall oppressed systems have kept women in extremely paralyzed situations, all because of a function of their bodies.

Additionally, they do explain that the way they are treated when they have their periods kept them from taking part in life regardless of having a pad that would hide the period. Without a pad they could clean and bath cloths regularly and still manage through life. What is amazing is that the technology of the pad has given them a chance to have the power to change their situation without have to change the system.

In the readings, A Birth Story and 12 Reasons It Should Be Illegal for Doctors to Not treat Trans People, you have a similar reflection of the use of technology in the status of a people’s freedom. In this case, the technology that is available to help us is held hostage and kept from people due to their gender identity and color of skin. Even when the technology is available, our rights to it can be completely out of our control. In these cases it is really important to see two views, one is how the fight against the bigger systems is undeniably a priority and work arounds are necessary but not a replacement.

I love this book, The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, I am so happy to be reading more from it. The author, Alicia Garza, is very good at breaking down these concepts. All of these concepts are complicated, definitely a spider web of time, which is also why it is sop complicated to break.

She reviewed the concept of power to help re-paint the picture of the hierarchy of white privilege and power. It seems this has to be done every time a new topic is addressed, which reminds me of how talking about gender and race is in real time. There is such a lie held up to create this system of power and control, that we deny and defend it even when it does nothing for us. It takes constant work and reminders to break it down.

As a white woman I can sadly relate to the response that the “blonde woman” gives. I too was raised in a world that is so scewed in order to keep it this way, it’s hard to even see the truth through the lies, even when you think you are doing the right thing and having a progressive stance. A world that is built around white privilege and power has to have a lot of systems in place to also keep the white people blind to it. To everyone that isn’t white they ofcourse can’t imagine how we could ever be so blind, but when they say a person is sheltered, it’s really the truth. Sheltered is covered and protected, protected from the truth. In my case it was these stories of progressive ideals, equality, we’re all one, “don’t see color”. No one ever talked about seeing color, seeing the truths of other’s experiences, and seeing the truth of what it is to be privileged.

So, I am very grateful for authors like Garza, who will take the time to break down these concepts. In order to see outside the box sometimes it takes multiple explanations to start to learn a new way of thinking and seeing (like a language) that has been disguised by lies for your whole life. Although all of the injustices are different, learning about the cross over can be helpful. For example, I am not a person of color, I am a cisgender white woman, but I have been denied health insurance due to preexisting conditions. By relating through experience one can then build a metaphor, that helps translate. Which helps put yourself into another’s shoes, so to speak. The things I relate to and have experienced myself do not help me know what it is like to be a black woman, but it does start to open my mind to the fact that maybe my mind was closed. Maybe there is something I don’t understand, maybe I am wrong and what I’ve been taught is wrong or a lie.

It is not easy to open people’s minds and undo lie and denial. So, I recognize the importance of writers like this.

What great readings, both were familiar but shined light on these topics in greater detail for me.

I didn’t know the difference between the women’s liberation movement and a liberated woman. I also found it very interesting in “The Politics of Housework”, by Pat Mainardi, the explanations of the psychological reactions men have to taking on household duties. That in reality, they do suck, and they are not wrong to be able to identify that. But that as women, we totally have it engrained in us to try to “whistle while we work”. I do think there is some benefit to that mind set, because it is nice to be able to find peace in taking care of yourself and the things around you. However, not to the extent of brain washing ourselves into not noticing or caring that one half of society is not taking part.

Also, how it is broken down in this reading that the success of men requires the oppression of women. Men would never be where they are now if they had to do housework. That is so true, and I really relate, because there have been times in my life where I was in positions that I noticed these inequalities myself. Being in a relationship and sharing the household duties with a man who is programmed in the way this article outlines men’s reactions.

I would end up, just doing the work because it was easier than the constant pushing and prodding to get them to do it. As a result I did not have time to be reading, enjoying, developing my career in more dynamic ways, because I had to come home and clean.

Women are really pinned into a corner with the housework. This article goes really deep on it. Translating men’s disdain towards housework into a very manipulative tactic to keep power. 

I also found a similar thread in “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm”, by Anne Koedt. How men made sex about their pleasure. To the extent of developing an entire psychological theory around it, Freud made the woman wrong for not functioning in a way that works for men to have their needs met without having to do any extra leg work.

The idea that the woman should be able to orgasm in a way that happens simultaneously and in support of a man orgasming, gives the man another opportunity to do no work at all. If a woman can not achieve this, and expects to be pleasured outside the actions of the male orgasms functions, she is deemed a failure and mentally unwell. As it says in the article, “we have been defined sexually in terms of what pleases men”. Women have pretty much been gaslit for a very long time.

This is where the liberated woman and the women’s lib movement have cross over: We must discard the “normal”  concepts of sex and redefine it with new concepts that take into account enjoyment for both men and women. “While this is liberally applauded, it is not followed. We need to break down the standards: the positions and the ideas of how sex should look.”

Pretty much, it is going to take time, work, and loss of power for some. Privileges and comforts need to be adjusted, and that requires a time of discomfort for the 50% of the population that has had a privileged experience. Most of this work is for the men to do, which is where the crux in the system lies.

Wow, this was a great article. I accidentally read it last week, but repeated this week to freshen up. I had no idea about ERA, nor that it’s a bill that was never passed. It is unbelievable to think that we still, 115 years later, can not bring ourselves to add equality to the constitution.

On that note, it is incredible the amount of time and dedication goes into what each and every women put into this fight thats been going on for over 100 years (if not more).