Untitled “Your Body is a Battleground”, like many of Kruger’s work, can relate to an array of political and social debates. It is a great example of how Kruger was not only actively involved in on going heated political issues, but also sent strong messages about them. According to Kruger’s book Love for Sale, figure 1. was made in response to the 1989 Women’s March in Washington in support of women’s rights, especially concerning abortion (the right to choose) and birth control rights. These demonstrations marked a new wave of anti-abortion laws. The march, as well as Kruger’s Untitled work in figure 1. are statements to the political leadership of America – President Bush, the Congress of the United States and the Supreme Court. The work …show more content…
Your Body is a Battleground, Barbara Kruger, 1989 In another version of the poster is even more overtly political, shown in figure 2. the text added clearly indicates the cause and stance of the artist. Even before producing her signature montages, Kruger had leftist inclinations when she was freelancing in book cover design for several publications. The books she took on as projects dealt with politics, such as Russia, and China; and Capitalism in Argentine Culture. Figure 3. Your Body is a Battleground (billboard project for Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH), Barbara Kruger, 1990 Kruger is not only an artist, but also an activist. Therefore, Figure 1 is not only a poster to mobilize the audience but also a summary of what protestors felt towards the issue. Through art, Kruger challenges the unbalanced power relation between women in the country and the conservative and right-wing agenda. As Kate Linker states, “To Kruger, power is not localized in specific institutions but is dispersed through a multiplicity of sites. . . power cannot be centralized. . .[it is] anonymous.” The artist also designed other posters and a billboard for pro-life organizations, as we can see in Figure 3. Kruger’s various efforts in support of the issue is an effective demonstration of her stance and efforts in this battle. Together with her action, the message is stronger than ever. Like feminist art critic Lucy Lippard says, “Artists
Anger and heated debate have long fueled the controversy over abortion. Whether pro-life or pro-choice, both sides of the argument are convinced of the righteousness of their beliefs. There is, however, some confusion surrounding the term “pro-choice” – it does not directly pertain to the spread and use of abortion, but rather, “pro-choicers” advocate the continued legalization of abortion in order to make the choice available and to ensure that women’s fundamental rights are not subjugated. The stance that abortion should be available has its roots in economic concerns, psychological evidence, moral dilemmas, and the Constitution.
In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “The Story of My Body” Ortiz Cofer represents herself narrative story when she were young. Her autobiography has four headlines these parts are skin, color, size, and looks. Every headline has it is own stories underneath it. Ortiz Cofer’s is expressing her life story about her physical and psychological struggle with her body. Heilbrun’s narrative, “Writing a Woman’s Life” shows that, a woman’s does not have to be an ideal to write a self-autobiography to tell the world something about herself and her life. Ortiz Cofer’s facing a body struggle that is not made by herself, but by people around her. Therefore, every woman is able to write can write an autobiography with no exception.
By alluding to popular activists in today’s society and the use of inspirational photos, the article shows support to women’s rights and inspiration for other women to fight for their rights. Quoting Madeleine Albright with “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other,” it helps integrate the idea that, no matter how hard a few people work to change something, it takes a larger group to highlight the
Hips are used as a symbol to reveal the power of a women body’s. Hips are mighty, free, and seductive. Hips are used for childbearing, only a female power. Lucille Clifton’s, a supporter of African Americans and feminism, believes that women have the same power as men. Anything men can do women can do the same, even better. Lucille Clifton’s “Homage to My Hips” rebuts the division of labor mechanism instilled in our society that isn’t politically correct; thereby taking a powerful stance in her confident belief that woman can do the same as men.
Like a blueprint or instruction manual, the objective of a rhetorical analysis is to dissect a written argument, identify its many parts, and explain how all of them come together to achieve a desired effect. Susan Bordo, a professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Kentucky, wrote “The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies”, published in 2003 in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Her essay examines how the media plays a pervasive role in how women view their bodies to the point where we live in an empire of images and there are no protective borders. In “The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies”, Bordo not only effectively incorporates numerous facts and statistics from her own research and the research of others; she also appeals to emotional realities of anxiety and inadequacy felt by women all over the world in regards to their body image. Ultimately, her intent is to critique the influence of the media on self-confidence and body image, and to remind her audience of the overt as well as subconscious messages they are receiving on a daily basis.
The cycle of protest that occurred in the sixties and seventies was the significant source of political opportunity for the pro-choice movement. The ability to motivate constituents from other ‘fights’ into the pro-choice movement was key to it’s success. early success of the project. After the initial Roe v. Wade decision, the political opportunities changed. and more organized constituents were to become involved.
Thomson’s main idea is to show why Pro-Life Activists are wrong in their beliefs. She also wants to show that even if the fetus inside a women’s body had the right to life (as argued by Pro – Lifers), this right does not entail the fetus to have whatever it needs to survive – including usage of the woman’s body to stay alive.
The Web. 10 Jan.2012 http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.rit.edu/stable/2960146?seq=6>. Mills, Charles W. "Body Politics, Bodies Impolitic." Social Research 78.2 (2011): 583-606. Academic Search Elite -.
No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Sherman’s photography is part of the culture and investigation of sexual and racial identity within the visual arts since the 1970’s. It has been said that, “The bulk of her work…has been constructed as a theater of femininity as it is formed and informed by mass culture…(her) pictures insist on the aporia of feminine identity tout court, represented in her pictures as a potentially limitless range of masquerades, roles, projections” (Sobieszek 229).
Feminism and political issues have always been centered on in the art world and artists like to take these ideas and stretch them beyond their true meanings. Female artists such as Hannah Höch, who thrived during the Dada movement in the 1920s in Germany and Barbara Kruger who was most successful during the 1980s to 1990s in the United States, both take these issues and present them in a way that forces the public to think about what they truly mean. Many of Kruger’s works close in on issues such as the female identity and in relation to politics she focuses on consumerism and power. Höch, like Kruger, also focuses on female identity but from the 1920s when feminism was a fairly new concept and like Kruger focuses on politics but focuses more on the issues of her time such as World War I. With the technique of photomontage, these two artists take outside images and put them together in a way that displays their true views on feminism and politics even though both are from different times and parts of the world.
Thus, Sick Woman Theory is born: "Sick Woman Theory is an insistence that most modes of political protest are internalized, lived, embodied, suffering, and no doubt invisible. Sick Woman Theory redefines existence in a body as something that is primarily and always vulnerable”
-McTavish, Lianne “Body Narratives in Canada, 1968-99: Sarah Maloney, Catherine Heard, and Kathleen Sellars” in Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2 Fall 2000 - Winter 2001. pp. 5-20
... Although, the media and the government often try to convince women otherwise, the only person who has a right to your body is yourself, not a baby nor a man. Pro-life advocates use guilt to convince women that a fetus, which is nothing more than a lump of cells, takes precedent and has a greater right to your body than you do. Thompson’s many examples throughout her paper provide strong evidence towards proving her stance and have convinced me to have an elevated understanding of a woman’s right to her body.
The. Excerpt from K. Conboy, N. Medina, and S. Stanbury, eds. Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory (401-17). NY: Columbia University Press, 1997. Fausto-Sterling, Anne. A. & Co.
In just a few decades The Women’s Liberation Movement has changed typical gender roles that once were never challenged or questioned. As women, those of us who identified as feminist have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at...