FREEDOM AND LIMITATIONS // FEMINISM

feminism - the advocacy of women's rights on the 
ground of the equality of the sexes.

First-wave feminism – 19th and early 20th century (1910s to 1950s), focusing on women’s suffrage, property rights and political candidacy;
Second-wave feminism – 1960s to 1980s, focusing on reducing inequalities in sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities;
Third-wave feminism – 1990s to 2008, focusing on embracing individualism and diversity;
Fourth-wave of feminism – 2008 to present-day, focusing on combating sexual harassment, assault and misogyny;
Fifth-wave feminism – Journalist Caitlin Moran’s concept of future feminism

Background of the Waves of Feminism

Feminism occurred through a series of waves, where feminist focused on different aspects during each wave and as they gained the women rights, or the freedoms which they were fighting for they moved on to the next wave which would push for more rights for women. the first wave of feminism was often taken for granted, women in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, realized that they must first gain political power (including the right to vote) to bring about change was how to fuel the fire. Their political agenda expanded to issues concerning sexual, reproductive and economic matters. The seed was planted that women have the potential to contribute just as much if not more than men. As this wave was the initial emergence of the whole movement it was more about setting the scene and showing that women really where capable of as much as men are. The second wave of feminism occurred just after the second world war, during this wave equality and rights in the workplace as well as fighting for sexuality, famility and reproductive rights for women. Coming about in the 1960’s, Second wave feminism was also part of a widespread social change movement that included of course, civil rights and gay rights activism as well. Second-wave feminism spread through small consciousness-raising groups where women joined together to discuss how sexism affected their life, work, and family. Second wave projects focused on economic and social inequalities between the genders, and highlighted injustices like the glass ceiling and the wage gap in business, as well as the hyper-sexualization and commercialization of the female body. The third wave of feminism followed on from the second, the reaction from the second wave brought the mass participation of many feminists and then the third began to look not so much at the shared experience of women but acknowledges the differences of women. Third wavers embrace a variety of feminisms, emphasizing diversity in all its forms: race, gender, class, sexual preference, political views and lifestyle. The varying feminist outlooks continue to be present today. The main issues we face today were prefaced by the work done by the previous waves of women. We are still working to vanquish the disparities in male and female pay and the reproductive rights of women. We are working to end violence against women in our nation as well as others. We are still fighting for acceptance and a true understanding of the term ‘feminism,’ it should be noted that we have made tremendous progress since the first wave. It is a term that has been unfairly associated first, with ladies in hoop skirts and ringlet curls, then followed by butch, man-hating women. Due to the range of feminist issues today, it is much harder to put a label on what a feminist looks like.

Feminism in Art and Photography

For my project i am going to focus on making images which follow the second wave of feminism as this was where it looked at sexuality and i am really interested in how women began to be presented in different ways and were presented as the beautiful actress as well as emerging portrait photography of empowering women and this is what i want to capture in my photography. The Feminist art movement emerged in the late 1960s amidst the fervor of anti-war demonstrations and civil and queer rights movements. Feminist artist focused on recreating the art world from what had previously been male dominated to recreated it to contemporary artwork which pushed the boundaries and abolished the stereotypical idea of the women in artwork. Feminist art created opportunities and spaces that previously did not exist for women and minority artists, as well as paved the path for the Identity art and Activist art of the 1980s.

Key ideas:


 - Feminist artists sought to create a dialogue between the viewer and the artwork through the inclusion of women's perspective. Art was not merely an object for aesthetic admiration, but could also incite the viewer to question the social and political landscape, and through this questioning, possibly affect the world and bring change toward equality.

 - Before feminism, the majority of women artists were invisible to the public eye. They were oftentimes denied exhibitions and gallery representation based on the sole fact of their gender. The art world was largely known, or promoted as, a boy's club, of which sects like the hard drinking, womanizing members of Abstract Expressionism were glamorized. To combat this, Feminist artists created alternative venues as well as worked to change established institutions' policies to promote women artists' visibility within the market.

 - Feminist artists often embraced alternative materials that were connected to the female gender to create their work, such as textiles, or other media previously little used by men such as performance and video, which did not have the same historically male-dominated precedent that painting and sculpture carried. By expressing themselves through these non-traditional means, women sought to expand the definition of fine art, and to incorporate a wider variety of artistic perspectives.
(http://www.theartstory.org/movement-feminist-art.htm)

Examples of Feminist artists;