Things I Love: Feminism
Feminism has opened my eyes to so many things that are happening around us that I was never aware of, or just took for granted as normal occurrences. It has made me aware of other systematic inequities and of my own taken-for-granted privileges.
I would like to start by explaining that feminism is not one opinion, but many conflicting opinions of what it means to achieve gender equality. Feminism is not a man-hating project that thinks women are better than men. It is just as concerned with the well-being of men as it is for women. The idea is to find a way for everyone to be treated fairly, regardless of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, ability, class, immigration status, visible minority, body type, or socioeconomic status. Because as much as we say that we live in an society where sexism or racism does not exist, and that we are all born with the same chances to succeed in life, that is not true. Some of us (and I include myself being born Canadian, white, middle-class, and having almost completed an undergrad degree) were born with less barriers in our way.
By looking at women, not as one united group, but as people from different backgrounds who have to face different obstacles and who are treated differently depending on how they look or where they are from, we can begin to realize that we are not all oppressed in the same ways. Some women even have more privilege than certain men, and it is important not to ignore these systemic inequities and resulting oppressions.
Feminism for me is the ability to be whoever you want to be regardless of what others think is appropriate. It is also about respecting others as human beings regardless of how they chose to choose to express their identity.
This is a fun list I found online that outlines some relevant feminist issues:
And we could also make a similar list that would apply to men who should not have to apologize for liking to working out, watching musicals, following sports, getting pedicures, or for their sexual orientation, etc.
With regards to how feminism is relevant to my art practice, I would say that it has allowed me to look at things differently, to question what we think of as normal, and to try to reshape realities. I find meaning in working with “craft”; sewing and knitting being a typically feminine associated activity, and looked down on in comparison to “high art”. Clothing references the domestic sphere (that women were not too long ago confined to) that also alludes to the endless domestic labour of laundry, hand-sewing and knitting (along with cooking, cleaning, child raising, emotional support, etc.). These labour-intensive activities are for the most part invisible and taken for granted, as are our stereotypical and expected roles as mothers, wives, home-makers and care-takers. Also, clothing shapes and reflects our daily lives; we are judged, approved, categorized, harassed, disrespected, etc. by what we wear and how we present ourselves and how others interpret that presentation.
With these projects I was trying to make visible certain feminist issues surrounding what roles we expect women to fill based on their gender.
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| Audrey D'Astous; Live to sleep to wash; Soft Sculpture; Pants (window washing, work on display), dishcloths (a lifetime of window dishes), bedsheets (a childhood of summer dreams), applesauce glass slippers (legs inactive); 94cm x 30cm; 2013. |
This project shows the roles that women are typically cast as: homemaker and sexual object. The front of the pants are replaced with a patchwork of dishcloths so that it is more convenient when washing the dishes (a women is made for doing housework); the backsides of the pants are replaced with bedsheets, because she is also a sexual object (made for the bed); all the while, she is wearing applesauce glass slippers that are impossible to stand in, let alone walk in (reflecting how women force themselves to fit into various garments/shoes that put them at a disadvantage and that are uncomfortable) trapping her in between the two positions of standing in the kitchen and lying down on the bed.
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| Audrey D'Astous; Don’t pick up - hang up; Soft Sculpture; Dish cloths, underskirts; 118cm x 55cm x 30 cm; 2013; Front |
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| Audrey D'Astous; Don’t pick up - hang up; Soft Sculpture; Dish cloths, underskirts; 118cm x 55cm x 30 cm; 2013; Back. |
This piece is an accumulation of dishcloths and underskirts, all sewn together to create a figure that is heavy and evokes a pregnant body. By showing the underskirts and mixing and fusing them with the dishcloths, I wanted to show the weight of typically invisible “women’s responsibilities” such as cleaning, dressing “respectably” and childbearing. The complex structure of the figure (it is a maze of different interconnecting pouches and pockets) is meant to reflect the complicated but invisible structures, ideologies and inequities that underly and shape these activities as well as the difficulties of having a female identity.
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