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Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'
Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies by Catherine McCormack
6 reviews
rey_reads's review against another edition
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.75
came into this with very little knowledge of art history & only the guerilla girls as the extent of my knowledge of feminist perspectives on art - so glad i read this!
really deepened my understanding of art and the way we look at it - joined up the dots between ideas i was already thinking about and issues i wasn’t entirely conscious of. also loved the idea that it’s really important that (”monstrous”) women make art & write even if this isn’t explicitly feminist (bc their art may not be feminist but the suppression of their ability to create is always sexist)
some highlights for me:
- mainly the idea that the predominant form of art we interact with today is advertising & how this is drawing from a historical body of art references that is at best largely biased towards a male perspective and at worst drawing from explicitly degrading + misogynistic ideas. so this feeds into an art form (ads) that is not only ubiquitous but is also created with the intention of influencing our beliefs …
-similarly, that we are drawing from a body of art that treats women in ways that has undermined their agency and value outside of their value as an object of the male gaze (primarily as objects not artists) - especially the idea that expression of male desire is so overwhelmingly prevalent that it has obscured the opportunity for depiction of female desire & that we are left without a visual framework for what female desire can even look like. so this creates a society where women are silent about both their pleasure and their violation & this “helps culture not to be able to tell the difference between the two” (barbara johnson)
and that in this way art works alongside legal prejudices to cultivate a society that normalises sexual violence towards women - or rape culture !!
- also thought the ideas about the power of who gets to look (the male gaze, about the power of female subjects being able to look at the viewer & about historical obstruction of women from making art because they weren’t able to access institutional support or able to look at their subjects or life outside the home) were interesting. -and adjacent ideas about the way we view male v female nude bodies (“as long as we have had nude images of women they have been sexually objectified”)
-one final note: on the privilege of feeling comfort & discussion of the use of “uncomfortable” in silencing discussions about sexual violence, racism, and homophobia
very long review - can you tell i loved it?? haha
really deepened my understanding of art and the way we look at it - joined up the dots between ideas i was already thinking about and issues i wasn’t entirely conscious of. also loved the idea that it’s really important that (”monstrous”) women make art & write even if this isn’t explicitly feminist (bc their art may not be feminist but the suppression of their ability to create is always sexist)
some highlights for me:
-similarly, that we are drawing from a body of art that treats women in ways that has undermined their agency and value outside of their value as an object of the male gaze (primarily as objects not artists) - especially the idea that expression of male desire is so overwhelmingly prevalent that it has obscured the opportunity for depiction of female desire & that we are left without a visual framework for what female desire can even look like. so this creates a society where women are silent about both their pleasure and their violation & this “helps culture not to be able to tell the difference between the two” (barbara johnson)
and that in this way art works alongside legal prejudices to cultivate a society that normalises sexual violence towards women - or rape culture !!
- also thought the ideas about the power of who gets to look (the male gaze, about the power of female subjects being able to look at the viewer & about historical obstruction of women from making art because they weren’t able to access institutional support or able to look at their subjects or life outside the home) were interesting. -and adjacent ideas about the way we view male v female nude bodies (“as long as we have had nude images of women they have been sexually objectified”)
-one final note: on the privilege of feeling comfort & discussion of the use of “uncomfortable” in silencing discussions about sexual violence, racism, and homophobia
very long review - can you tell i loved it?? haha
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Abortion
jenniferlawrencesgf's review against another edition
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Colonisation, and Classism
charlottejones952's review against another edition
challenging
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
hannahmci's review
informative
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
louise_o's review against another edition
informative
5.0
This. Was. Everything. It was a book that made me frustrated that I’d never be able to retain every piece of information I came across. It felt like things that I’d always thought or felt were taken by the author, backed up, made more thorough and articulated in a way far beyond my intelligence probably ever will be and then written perfectly into this book. I would come across something and think Yes! Thats what I’ve always thought! …The chapter index alone made me grin (“Venus; Mothers; Maidens and Dead Damsels; Monstrous Women” - I think my exact mental words were fuck yes). It was a seamless blend of ancient and historical art with more familiar and wide spread pop-culuture references…and just….wow. I think I’ve just made the discovery that non-fiction books are only boring if they’re about things that bore you?? I know — its revolutionary. So yes: 5 glorious stars.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault
arthistoryforall's review
challenging
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
4.75
(I received an advance reader’s copy of this book from NetGalley and W.W. Norton in exchange for an honest review.)
With Women in the Picture McCormack creates a beautifully written, broad-ranging survey of feminist concerns in Western art history that serves as an entry point to feminist art history for general audiences and enriches enthusiasts’ understanding of the field. McCormack investigates the work of big names--Botticelli, Michelangelo, Morisot, Gentileschi, Ringgold, Beyoncé--as well as that of more niche figures like Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Leonor Fini, to explore four major archetypes of womanhood in art history and visual culture: Venus, the mother, the damsel, and the monstrous woman.
Within this four-archetype structure, McCormack also takes time to specifically address the implications these archetypes have for Black women’s bodies and how they are portrayed, a welcome and necessary element, given art history’s tendency to focus primarily on white, Western images, bodies, and artists. The relationship of the four archetypes to queerness, transness, and non-binary identities is occasionally discussed, but I think the book would have benefited from a little more engagement with this (for example, the “monstrous women” chapter seems like a perfect opportunity to discuss the current cultural tendency to characterize trans women’s bodies as “monstrous” or “deceptive.”) Overall, I’d love to see even more broad-ranging and intersectional analysis in this book, not because there’s any great lack of it, but because I enjoy McCormack’s analysis and want to see how far she can take it and what interesting images she can bring in for discussion.
Women in the Picture is a great addition to art lovers’ personal libraries, with elegant prose and insightful, well-supported analysis, not just of the art historical canon, but of contemporary visual and pop culture. There are some points which may be a little difficult for general readers to penetrate, and possibly some missed opportunities for further analysis, but I’d absolutely recommend this book regardless of one’s art education level
With Women in the Picture McCormack creates a beautifully written, broad-ranging survey of feminist concerns in Western art history that serves as an entry point to feminist art history for general audiences and enriches enthusiasts’ understanding of the field. McCormack investigates the work of big names--Botticelli, Michelangelo, Morisot, Gentileschi, Ringgold, Beyoncé--as well as that of more niche figures like Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Leonor Fini, to explore four major archetypes of womanhood in art history and visual culture: Venus, the mother, the damsel, and the monstrous woman.
Within this four-archetype structure, McCormack also takes time to specifically address the implications these archetypes have for Black women’s bodies and how they are portrayed, a welcome and necessary element, given art history’s tendency to focus primarily on white, Western images, bodies, and artists. The relationship of the four archetypes to queerness, transness, and non-binary identities is occasionally discussed, but I think the book would have benefited from a little more engagement with this (for example, the “monstrous women” chapter seems like a perfect opportunity to discuss the current cultural tendency to characterize trans women’s bodies as “monstrous” or “deceptive.”) Overall, I’d love to see even more broad-ranging and intersectional analysis in this book, not because there’s any great lack of it, but because I enjoy McCormack’s analysis and want to see how far she can take it and what interesting images she can bring in for discussion.
Women in the Picture is a great addition to art lovers’ personal libraries, with elegant prose and insightful, well-supported analysis, not just of the art historical canon, but of contemporary visual and pop culture. There are some points which may be a little difficult for general readers to penetrate, and possibly some missed opportunities for further analysis, but I’d absolutely recommend this book regardless of one’s art education level
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual violence
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