Judith Enright on sun 18 oct 98
"the show had nothing to do with oppression of women. i think women do
encounter this at times but no where near as in the past. it is time for
women to let this issue go..."
Well, I'm pretty sure I disagree here. I've been trying to wrap my mind
and heart around this one since Donn's post originally appeared, and this
is what I've come up with. A disclaimer before I begin: I am not a raging
feminist and I'm also not speaking from my experience of formal art
education (because I don't have any):
Oppression against women exists in severe forms all around the world --
just pick up any newspaper and you can read about genital mutilation as a
cultural rule in certain African countries, or a woman's murder by the hand
of her own father because she married whom she loved in India, women being
sequestered from education and commerce in the certain Middle Eastern
sectors, and the list goes on. Yes, those are so-called Third World
countries. And in this country, though we have laws in place protecting a
woman's right to equal pay for equal work, the right to own property and
the right to vote, the statistics from social welfare agencies, hospitals
and law enforcement agencies show an increase in women suffering from
abusive situations at home. And that's just one example. Is it really time
for women to let it go?
I feel that alot of feminist art has to do with a genetic, or collective,
memory of what women have struggled through, and continue to struggle
through. It's not necessarily confined to the artist's direct experience.
Not all feminist art is tasteful or well done, but neither has been the
history. I also believe that there is probably a level of understanding
beyond which a male viewer cannot go because he doesn't carry the genetic
memory and has no experience as a woman. Turn it around: a woman who has
never killed an enemy in battle can perceive only so much of what it means
for a man who has.
I never really understood the monuments to battle, the great statues of war
heros, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers and the like beyond what they
represent as a step in this country's military and political history.
Recently I read William Manchester's Goodbye Darkness (A Memoir of the
Pacific War), and began to get an inkling of the immense effort that one
man had to make in order to survive that war environment. It is, however,
a uniquely male perspective and I don't pretend to understand or accept
what happened for him and others over there. What I do know, because he so
stated, is that he shared his experience as much as a catharsis for himself
as a rendering of a piece of history for the reader.
I believe that much of modern feminist art, in all it's beauty and
ugliness, in its refined and raw states, is maybe just that: a process by
which the artist can express herself, purge herself, so that she can,
perhaps, free her own spirit.
Judith Enright @ Black Leopard Clayware
BLeopard@ricochet.net
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