If you are asked to name a few famous artists in history, who would you say? The inventive genius Leonardo da Vinci, or a contentious impressionist Pablo Picasso? Can you think of any female artists and explain their artworks? I hope you can, but if I ask you to list all the artists you know, do you think you can list more male or female artists?
Over the past decade, top 26 museums in the states acquired 260,470 total works, and merely 29,247 of them were works by female artists; that’s a little bit more than 10%. In the national gallery, only 21 out of 2300 paintings were by women, and that’s about 1%. Women are underrepresented in the art field.
To figure out reasons for why, let’s consider something puzzling. If we think about Art, I think we can reach one consensus that regardless of its medium, Art is heavily based on emotions: from ancient totems arising awe and admiration to modern paintings expressing anger or love. And since Art is such an emotional topic, the expectation of artists is indubitably that artists should be emotional.
The gender norm suggests men should be strong and firm even to the most emotional trauma, and it is less socially acceptable for men to express their emotions. On the other hand, the women are expected to be caring and nurturing. This means, women should be more emotionally sensitive than men are so that women could have a better sense of sympathy and empathy in order to be a loving mother and a supporting wife. As a result, the gender norm should lead us to one conclusion: women should be more talented and successful artists than men should, and they should be the experts and shine at the art field.
But the reality is the opposite. From art history to contemporary art museums, it is men who overwhelmingly dominate the art field. So how can we make sense of this paradox?
Kate Manne may argue, like many other fields, the art field has misogynist problems. To Manne, misogyny is not a hatred towards women because they are women; rather, it is a hatred towards women selectively (Manne, 50). A misogynist can love some of women but have hatred or discomfort towards another group of women who violate the gender norm. The underlying assumption of misogyny is that all women should be this or should do that, such as following their coded goods – to be nurturing and caring, etc. If they fail to follow the coded goods and violate the gender norm, it is viewed as problematic, and that is how misogynist hatred comes from.
So in this blog, I will begin with how Manne may explain the formation of misogyny in the art field; then, I will explain how the misogynist views are implemented and manifested; third, I then discuss how the misogyny impacts people’s views on the artworks of female artists.
—— Section I —–
Let’s begin with the question who are artists. What are some characteristics of famous artists? Artists are thought to be independent and adventitious. They are full of passion, the passion of discovering and expressing the unknown parts of the world. They may be considered psycho because they may appear too stubborn, but it is just because they are too determined and committed in revealing what is inside the fascinating mind.
So independence, passion, and adventure are the characteristics of innovative artists, but are they what society expects women to have? According to the female coded goods which Manne provides, the answer is apparently no. Kate Manne points out the gender norm expects women to be certain type of women (Manne, 58). This means the norm expects women to be functional and relational: “to play the role of a man’s attentive, loving subordinate.” (Manne, 57) These expectations on women reveal the expectations on women’s function: to provide care and support. As a result, characteristics from the opposite side like independence and adventure are not only not women’s functions, but also what they shouldn’t be. In other words, an expectation is transformed into a moral expectation and injunction.
So what happens when women transcend the gender norm and become independent and adventitious artists? Manne may respond that it is how misogyny is formed. When people, regardless of their gender, feel discomfort or hatred towards women who violate the notion of nurturing and caring women, it is misogyny. Manne herself demonstrates this discomfort with an example, but the subject is not a female artist, but a female politician – Hilary Clinton. She admitted when she saw Clinton being so outspoken and grounded and arguing against a white man on the television, she experienced a suffer. It was not intentional – not what she wanted – but a spontaneous response resulted from living in this patriarchal society.
To conclude, why there is misogyny in the art field? Because the world doesn’t expect women to be artists: it wants women to be selfless, supportive, and dependent. And when some women rebel against this expectation and become independent and expressive as how artists should be, they upset those people who hold that expectation, and this is how misogyny in the art field is provoked.
—— Section II —–
Then, the next question is how misogyny is specifically manifested.
According to Manne, a result of misogyny and sexism is sexual objectification which can be demonstrated in two ways: (1) the non-attribution of a person of a gender to a subject; (2) the violation of that person of a subject (Manne, 85). Although Manne discusses sexual objectification in order to distinguish misogyny and sexism, I am not going to focus on the differences between these two terms; rather, I would explain how the two ways of objectification are illustrated in the art field.
To be put in the art context, the first way of objectification is a denial of women’s artistic talents or skills. In other words, it is the idea that women just can’t do art, and women are deprived of the abilities and talents needed for art. An example can be creativity. Creativity seems to be one of the characteristics we expect artists to have, but it is not uncommon to see sexist comments that women can’t be creative so they can’t be good artists.
A German contemporary male artist Georg Baselitz once commented that, “Women don’t paint very well. It’s a fact.” This is clearly a sexist view that target women’s artistic achievements. His arguments is simply this: if an artists have exceptional skills and talents (paint well), the artist’s works would be recognized by the art market, and the artist would succeed in the art market; and because there are merely a few famous female artists, so women in general don’t have exceptional artistic skills.
This argument is naive because the art market is unlike a fair standardized test; it is a market heavily relying on networks and subjective and biased judgements. And Baselitz fails to consider how societal bias regarding who the artist is can impact how we evaluate and judge one’s artwork, and this idea will be explained later in the blog.
The second form of objectification is a result of misogyny. It can be translated like this: “yes, women can be creative and skillful in art, but they shouldn’t do it, and they should do x, y, z instead.” Unlike the first objectification, this one doesn’t deny women’s artistic talents, but imact women’s free will in making choices. It is like “you can do this, but maybe you should do that because that is better for you.” This is targeted not towards all women, but merely women who do art. If women who conform to gender norm and do what gender norm expects them to do instead of art, they wouldn’t be the target of this objectification.
—— Section III —–
What’s mentioned above is how misogyny and sexism are manifested, but artists are essentially creators: they create artworks to let people appreciate and comment. So does misogyny make an impact on how we perceive artworks from male or female artists? Kate Manne may respond yes.
In the book, Kate Manne discusses what’s called testimony injustice, which is to view one’s testimony less credible because s/he is from a subordinate group. It is derived from a philosophical term “Epistemic Injustice” that questions one’s ability to testify. Manne indicates there are two ways of testimony injustice – competence and trustworthiness (Manne, 186), and I will just focus on the overall effect of these two ways, and that is to view one’s testimony less credible.
So how is testimony injustice related to Art? I think art is a statement made by the artists, so to some degree, artworks can be considered as testimony of the artists regarding their worldview and experience. Additionally, the testimony and artworks are evaluated and judged by other people, so art share some similarities with the stated testimony.
I think female artists are likely to be subject to artistic testimony injustice when the audience may view female artists’ works, they may make an immediate judgement that the female artist will be less competent in terms of skills than male artists, and she probably is not capable to fully understand her stories and life and then demonstrate them. This judgement may happen subconsciously, and this is why it is problematic. An audience who criticizes an artwork of a woman may claim he has no bias towards any women at all, but still subconsciously being picky at her works, which then allows him to reach the conclusion that this female artist is not that good.
I want to conclude with a survey which asked students of an art school if they viewed themselves as artists, and 60% of male students responded yes and 60% of female students responded no. But when asked whether they would continue making art if they were told they could make money out of art, only half of male students said yes, while almost all female students said yes. Those female students who didn’t quite view themselves as artists were the ones who had the genuine commitment to art. I think this is why we combat misogyny because it is excluding people out of the field which they may belong to or they may be a star of. And it is not only sad for those individuals who are excluded, but also a loss for the society.
Shared by: Anonymous
Image Credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4eLdL