- Notes
- 3 main issues: stereotypes of testosterone crazed men, showing men as spectacles for women, celebration of women’s friendships Two points of views
- “Bloody, sadistic of explosive revenge for the evils men do.. Are we so starved for ‘strong’ women’s roles that this revenge, and the pell-mell, lunatic flight that follows, fits anyone’s definition of strength, or even more peculiarly, or neo-feminism?” – Sheila Benson
- look up neo-feminism
- On the other hand…
- Patricia Mellencamp “Themla & Louise” struck a social chord
- Showing women escaping the trap of “happily ever after” and all that “once upon a time”
– frees women from the “expectations and limitation” of fairy tales that women are taught to make our lives.

Femininity = rely on friendships, and achieve fearlessness

Cooper, Brenda. “”Chick Flicks” as Feminist Texts: the Appropriationof the Male Gaze in Thelma & Louise.” Women’s Studies in Communication os 23 (2000): 1-30.

There is no causal direction when we try to link low self-esteem with problem behaviour in youth (girls between the ages of 9-12). The idea of young girls being taught by birth that life is a pageant having to constantly be on a “stage”, being watched and judged by others is staggering. Unfortunately by just telling someone to have more self-esteem will not improve their sense of self-worth, because “the person would only feel better if they experience success in areas that they care about”.

I need to keep that in mind at all times when I’m thinking about this project. I need to ensure that I’m not making art that is simply just telling someone to have more self-esteem or the old thing of “be proud of who you are”. I think we could go one of two ways at this point. We could go the positive and empowering way by not using images of women and replacing them with images of recognizable objects, which would serve as a gentle reminder that perfection is fabricated.

How to portray that the entire media business is fabricated, that it’s nonexistent. It’s a fantasy that is created by people and business. I need to be able to show that somehow.

I’m very against using the woman in a vulnerable position at this point (differing from my initial departure point) from a fear and concern of her being seen in a negative point of view on top of all the aftermath. It would be redundant to show women in these positions as it would not serve to communicate the message that the “media is plastic” effectively. Having said that telling someone that they should feel more empowered and have more of something won’t do it- showing how something isn’t real would help it.

I need to find a way to show that someone isn’t real- How things work behind the scenes. How technology could create a different identity for one person. The glamour, fame and beauty that is portrayed by the media– all those perfect pretty things that shine, look and smell good. My images need to be in high gloss- they need to have that magazine quality to them. They need to be compelling enough to show the reality of everything – to shock and to tell the truth. Perhaps that’s the only way a person could truly be capable of seeing the truth that lies behind all these issues.

When I stumbled on websites that portrayed images of women who didn’t belong to the “ideal” body type I started to really hate myself because it was so difficult to just change my point of view about my vision of beauty. It still sickens me and I feel mortified at the fact that I thought they were living in denial, and that the woman being 500 pounds couldn’t possibly be calling herself happy and healthy. It just didn’t make sense to me. I immediately closed the browser window because I couldn’t accept the disgusting thoughts going through my mind.

Now that I come to think of it- maybe I don’t have a problem with what people consider to be beautiful, because deviants exist, and norms exists (omg deviance and normality again) – they exist because without them it would be impossible for humans to co-exist. Without agreements on norms we would end up with conflicts and strain. Strain on our society because we won’t be able to predict outcomes and formulate patterns… Right?

In this sense yes, but today it has reached its cap – the tension is rising from these norms (which are supposed to maintain society) and deteriorating our way of life particularly in women. These norms (standards of beauty) are now lowering self-esteem and causing added strain on women. Why should women feel embarrassed to try on a bikini? Alone? Even when women are alone they feel embarrassed- and that’s a fact. Why should women be embarrassed of their bodies? Would that then explain the reasons why professional women athletes are no longer allowed to change topless in locker rooms? What could an artist do to stop the bleeding? How would life be like if we continue with these? Perhaps everything would just crash and norms would be revisited?

There should be norms and a definition of beauty, of what we find beautiful, because generalizations do exist. The problem lies now because those standards are too high that even a little setback would cause adverse treatment from others, for example if person “A” got a bad haircut she would first of all know that she got a bad haircut, and then seek reinforcement from others that her haircut is indeed bad and that she needs to get it fixed. She then reads a magazine that will “tell her” what a beautiful haircut should look like, and since they all look perfect and flawless it becomes reality?

Calogero M, Rachel. A Test of Objectification Theory: The Effect of the Male Gaze on Apperance Concerns in College Women. London: William Clowes Ltd, 1972.

Objectification Theory: the implicit and explicit sexual objectification of the female body in Western culture produces a multitude of negative consequences for women.

The primary psychological consequence of sexual objectification is the development of an unnatural perspective of the self known as self-objectification
- Women who “self-objectify” have internalized observer (surveyor) are anxious about how others will judge them and treat them.
- Increased body shame, appearance anxiety, disordered eating, diminished mental performance and capacity to achieve peak motiovational states
- Trying on a swimsuit for example shows signs of being on display when no actual observers were present

Calogero M, Rachel. A Test of Objectification Theory: The Effect of the Male Gaze on Apperance Concerns in College Women. London: William Clowes Ltd, 1972.

Download the full article here: http://www.actforyouth.net/documents/june_self_esteem.pdf

Other interesting facts/reads/theories: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/links.asp?topicID=7 http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_mediaeffect.shtml

Self-esteem (notes):
- causal direction is unclear, which means that they’re unsure if having low self-esteem causes youth to engage in problem behaviour or the other way around
–ex// Gang members have higher than normal self-esteem
- Ways to boost self-esteem
- Programs in 1960’s were designed to make youth feel good about themselves
- Don’t work on raising self-esteem for the purpose of reducing problem behaviour – this isn’t an effective strategy
- Telling someone to have more self-esteem won’t do it
- they will only feel better about themselves if they experience success in areas that they care about and are praised by people they respect
- Relationships with parents, friends social support groups
- Reducing disappointment

“Adolescent Self Esteem.” Research Facts and Findings os (2003): 1-4. 13 Oct. 2006 http://www.actforyouth.net/documents/june_self_esteem.pdf.

Perhaps we could use the idea of challenging the notion of being watched as the center of my research. The entire exercise of reading and researching is extremely useful in pinpointing the goal of this project. To begin I understand that I do want to make art that speaks about women, and the body image, but the challenge is to discover what I dislike particularly about it, what are its’ precursors and where I stand in the entire process. For example do I want to diminish the effects of the male gaze towards female physical insecurities, or do those events even correlate? Certainly the media has a lot to contribute to this subject as well, and I need and want to discover those things. What I am certain about are my concerns towards female insecurities, how it negatively impacts a woman’s way of life and her conditioned beliefs. By shifting the focus away from the vulnerable woman who looks away from the viewer we move into gestures and images of woman who are defiant of the gaze, she begins to question the idea of being looked at- submissive and passive. It becomes a two-way conversation rather than the viewer who is receiving what he wishes from the image of the woman. I am talking about women, self-esteem and how it has completely gotten out of hand. I do not ignore the fact that the reality is that women are seen as objects, commodity. I accept that as a fact because it is already too late to change what is woven so deep into our shameful, vain society. I want to be able to communicate something to the viewer that would show women empowerment, for them to be able to really think about how important these beliefs and standards of perfection are, and about conformity and to measure it instead of just accepting. By studying traditional methods of early Western European Paintings and applying them in a reverse matter by placing the woman in a pose that would render the viewer to react and question why and how are women standing up for themselves against these beliefs? Having said that it would be a bit more complicated to achieve those goals – because of the uses of very traditional art, and to be able to communicate that would be a little bit difficult. I choose painting as a medium because the viewer needs to make that connection between these images and the ideas behind the women portrayed in traditional paintings.