In 1989 Gran fury created the project “Kissing Doesn’t Kill”. This was a project wholly devoted to the AIDS crisis and to ending the stereotype upon homosexual individuals that came along side it, bringing acceptance and a celebration of their sexuality in support to Cindy Patton’s - a queer theorist in 1985 - comment that “AIDS must not be viewed as proof that sexual exploration and the elaboration of sexual community were mistakes...lesbian and gay men...must maintain that vision of sexual liberation that defines the last fifteen years of [our] activism.” Its aim was to bring awareness amongst the public and to address the society and governments’ turn of a blind eye to this great issue that society was facing. The title “kissing doesn’t kill” was to inform people and challenge the incorrect rumours that through kissing, AIDS can be transmitted. It became very apparent that the government, especially that of Chicago was not very concerned for the rights of equality and seemed very homophobic in their responses to Fury’s “kissing Doesn’t Kill” project. The project took on the methods of the media to help guide the issues Fury was putting across. Here he used the same layout and design of the famous “United Colours of Benetton” advertisements through the use of vivid colours and happy people stood side by side. This was to attract the audience’s attention through their recognition, but then for them to recognise that something isn’t quite right...The people in the image are kissing; People of different ethnicity and people of different sex. It also becomes apparent that two of the three pairs of people kissing are of the same sex. Which thinking back to how controversial that was in the ‘80’s/’90’s will have no doubt raised a brow and topic for debate and discussion. So success!
Above the image is written “Kissing doesn’t kill: Greed and Indifference do whilst underneath the image reads “Corporate greed, government inaction and public indifference makes aids a political crisis”. This was to raise one of the most important issues that Fury felt needed to be addressed. The images were placed around public areas including subway platforms, bus shelters, on billboards and on the sides of busses; this was so that people would think they were just ordinary adverts. Loring McAlpin who was a member of Fury’s group said that “We are trying to fight for attention as hard as Coca-Cola fights for attention”. The image became mass produced and widely spread, making appearances in music videos which were broadcast on MTV. Avram Finkelstein, who was another member of Fury’s group states that the project was successful due to putting “political information into environments where people are unaccustomed to finding it....It’s very different from being handed a leaflet where you automatically know someone’s trying to tell you something and you may not be receptive to hearing it. But when you’re walking down the street and your gazing at advertising...who knows what goes through you mind?”
This project ended up being very successful and noticed by a large audience including organisations and art galleries. Fury was invited to show his work in the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Venice Biennale due to they’re fondness of the topic and received funding for his project which meant that he could up-scale the work and afford to put the images on billboards and plaques. Once he had received this money it meant that it was difficult to remain within the public sphere and out of the “art world” and the organisers, AMFAR, which funded the project, asked that he remove the writing from the bottom of the image otherwise the project will be stopped completely. Censorship can be a common problem when producing art as activism, there seems to be a fear when something could be offensive, and this may be down to the now fashionable ability to sue individuals or groups.
Unfortunately through Fury’s acceptance to do this the images were misread and put into the context for as though they were supporting gay rights and their rights to kiss in public which lead to the politicians of Chicago prohibiting the work from coming into the city. Robert Shaw, the city alderman said that the image “has nothing to do with the cure for AIDS. It has something to do with a particular lifestyle, and I don’t think that is what the CTA (Chicago Transit Company) should be (in) the business of promoting” he also said that the image was “directed at children for the purposes of recruitment” and it therefore was not allowed to be shown anywhere that under 21 year olds could view it.
These images were humbly used in gay pride festivals to further protest for their rights and create awareness. The American Civil Liberties Union soon caught on and stood aside the gay and lesbian community to gain their rights. This worked and the posters were then allowed access to the cities areas but within 24 hours all but a few images had been destroyed by the public. This lead to a further recognition of the struggles that the homosexual community face and action was, and is, being sought to change this. There was press coverage and news reports on the event that meant the word was being spread even further, through this the images had a huge impact on the route to change.
Peter Kennard is an artist that uses the shocking images from miseries of the world to compile into photo montages in the aim of providing a story of the devastations that is going on in the world. He uses Ironic, and emotional content to draw in the audience and educate them; this is the first step to creating change. Kennard says that “The point of the photo montage is to show the causes of things rather than just the result. Hopefully if you show the causes, people will think about how they’re implicated in it.” He sees topics of poverty and adornment as being massively important, they are topics that people need to be aware of and so he continues to use them throughout his work. “Poverty is nor natural and inexorable – it’s not to do with increasing the world population but to do with human action and I try to make that clear through imagery. And that’s why the work looks crude and obviously constructed. It’s about oil disruption and the breaking of things, about trying to look into things under the surface.”
Kennard has been referred to as a social conscience due to the political element in his work and trying to speak out in the aid of morality and what he feels people need to be aware of, to stop the evils man is inflicting on the world. He says that he likes to think he “acts as an early warning sign” to make people understand; breaking through their corrupted minds of acceptance that “this is just the way it is” and that “it’s for the good of our country” he wants people to wake up and to prevent any further destruction and unnecessary death from happening in the world.
Kennard’s work is in on permanent exhibition in the Tate, London. He sees that not only through working in a gallery space but in the public sphere art becomes represented to a wider audience and as it becomes informal it applies to a larger portion of individuals. Generally speaking, through being out of the gallery setting it becomes more accessible to those other than the middle class who usually dominate the gallery space. By working with montage he can be direct in what he is representing or what issues he is putting across rather than with other mediums where the final outcome is not entirely known and so this method is quick at generating a response amongst its audience. But there is also a disadvantage to this method, in that, photo montages are commonly made, and with the technologies about and more of a wider understanding of how they work; people feel the images are easily made which lowers the importance of the meaning by attention fixated on the product. People see the supposed “simple” technique as making the image seem naive.
For chance to happen, Kennard believes that people need to speak out. They need to discover their voice and that their personal opinion is as important as the next person. He tries to encourage this through his work, he says that his work “tries to voice to those who are increasingly marginalised and silenced. It’s not art about art, its art about the world; it’s trying to bring the outside in, the world into the gallery.
The work that I am going to talk about is his book @Earth which is truly fascinating. It is a book that was published May this year, 2011. It is based on the photo montages that Kennard has produced in the 40 years of his career as an artist. The book is an essay purely made up of images – no writing- to provide a vision of what is happening in the world; to enrage the individual reading it, to provide a look into the world that Pete Kennard sees and to provoke that individuals concern and appetite for fighting for change to take place, to stop this devastation. The essay begins with an insight into the realities of the condition of the world, to what our industrious technologies are doing to it and to the worlds disadvantaged people, then onto the faceless authorities and their perceived powers in the world, spying on and controlling every move we make, infecting society with fear and lies through propaganda, praying on the weak and damaged people to be the puppets in their madness without concern for their welfare or for the health of the world in which we live in. They provide medals as an appreciation of their honour with disregard to the lives that have ended or have been ruined as a result of their forced actions upon the oppositional. They leave their mark on the destroyed landscapes and homelands of the innocent. They are the enemy? Who is really the enemy? Through this power hungry act for money, money represented through oil, power represented though weapons, but who is being left behind? The poor are suffering at the hands of greed. Lives are being gambled with, the earth is being gambled with, we need to open our eyes and look for this. Kennard wants the audience to understand his frustrations and the frustrations of the people who are ignored, whose voices are never heard. What will happen to our world if we don’t take action now? We need to put a stop to this! Nuclear warfare and its glorification, needs to be ended before it’s too late, but the clock is ticking, we only have a matter of time. We do have the power to rise up.
Kennard made this book accessible to as many people as he felt possible by providing a book with no words in it meant that people of every language could read and understand it, Of course the ‘@’ symbol is also worldly known and he felt that the symbol would relate heavily to the younger audience especially which he felt was important as the younger generations actions and views will shape the world of the future. He discussed this in an interview where he said “the idea is to bring it to as wide an audience as possible and especially to young people, which is the generation that is growing up that, is going to change the world. And computer symbols are understood universally by young people, hence calling it @earth.” Only a few weeks ago I went to a lecture given by Peter Kennard where he spoke about his book, I asked him after the lecture if and how he felt his book can provide change in the world. He answered, “I intend to create awareness amongst its audience”, the actions are left up to the viewers but he wanted to provide them with strong images in the hope of changing the way they think about the world. Though this book has only been out only six months to the date that I am writing this essay, the book has had a wide coverage of recognition and applause. Naomi Klein commented that "This book perfectly captures the brutal asymmetries of our age: heavy weaponry trained on broken people, all-seeing technologies and disappearing identities, perpetually exhaling industry and an asphyxiating planet. If there's a word that's worth a thousand pictures, it's @earth." Banksy said that: “I take my hat off to you sir, @earth looks great”.
“image saves all” as Gaston Bachelerd asserts in the poetics of space. “The natural, the untamed, is a duplicate of our identity, yet also the precautionary reminder of our limitations.”
Manuel Sendon
He focuses on the photographers capacity to confuse
“I was especially intrigued by the fact that pictures of ‘reality’ end up being fundamental elements when it comes to shaping a new ‘reality’, with all that this entails.”
Landscape images are “Sometimes the chosen views of New York city, often lit to achieve greater idealization, and other times there are waterfalls, lakes, rivers or forests, in which the distorting action of man is never apparent. This illustrates that our natural spaces are being destroyed, at a mind boggling speed in recent years, images of idyllic nature scenes are seen decorating our interiors.”
“we can also note situations in which the pictures represent settings that are familiar to the users of the premises in which they are situated, wherein the photo becomes a reinforced element of their very sense of identity.”
I read an article in EXIT magazine which focuses on the way people behave today and the theory behind this. The article is by Rose Olivares. I have quoted the interesting parts:
“It has taken us a long time to realize that everything is a simulacrum. Reality is a mirage, for we constantly construct it and reconstruct it, not only through our memory and our desires, but through the archetypes that over time have been a typology that is sometimes kitch, sometimes monotonous and sometimes invisible”
“Oscar Wilde said, if nature had of been comfortable, humanity would never have invented architecture”
“What is certain is that humanity has gradually turned its back on nature, closing the door on the garden, moving away from it by evolutionary, developmental, imperatives.”
“Our desire for nature, our need to relive that idea of beauty and peace, tranquillity and fulfilment that we associate with nature.”
“To believe that in nature lays the only possibility of being happy, of perfection, of self-rediscovery, or simply with the good that we continue to believe we have in us. Beyond decoration and good or bad taste, what we seek is fulfilment and beauty without stopping to think that nature may just be another deception, that it was never so perfect or so beautiful after all, that everything is actually in our imaginations, feeding our desires which are not only impossible but absurd. Because it is not just that nature is not comfortable, it is not perfect either, and perhaps that beauty we attribute it with does not exist except in our eyes, and that’s why its representation does not quite satisfy us, because it looks too much like reality, because in our lives as urbanities there is no longer space for anything but a flowered shirt, and advertisements for exotic journeys, some specific adjournment which is the part of nature that survives today, a will forever, it may be for better or for worse, that it is for us as it was for Oscar Wilde” Who quoted “When I look at a landscape I cannot help seeing all its defects.” Acting on this – Frank Thiel, Untitled 2007.
Feigned Paradises: The Sex Appeal of Artifice by Antonio Lucas
John Asbery pointed out “The tension is in the concept/rather than its realisation”
“image saves all” as Gaston Bachelerd asserts in the poetics of space. “The natural, the untamed, is a duplicate of our identity, yet also the precautionary reminder of our limitations.”
Photography’s Capacity to Confuse by Manuel Sendon
“I was especially intrigued by the fact that pictures of ‘reality’ end up being fundamental elements when it comes to shaping a new ‘reality’, with all that this entails.”
Landscape images are “Sometimes the chosen views of New York city, often lit to achieve greater idealization, and other times there are waterfalls, lakes, rivers or forests, in which the distorting action of man is never apparent. This illustrates that our natural spaces are being destroyed, at a mind boggling speed in recent years, images of idyllic nature scenes are seen decorating our interiors.”
“we can also note situations in which the pictures represent settings that are familiar to the users of the premises in which they are situated, wherein the photo becomes a reinforced element of their very sense of identity.”
Landscape for the People by Mark Lyons
“My inspiration for creating photography stems from finding and documenting peculiar juxtapositions in everyday places. This often involves the act of re-photographing photographs.”
“The series, Landscape for the People, looks at the use of romanticised wall paper landscape photographs found in everyday environments. These wall-sized photographic murals seem to serve a psychological function, given their potentially intimidating or banal locations, like dental rooms and Laundromats. The landscape murals allow the viewer an alternative mindset to nerve racking procedures or the mundane activities of everyday life.”
“They act to heighten our daydreams with an idyllic panoramic view that envelops or line of sight.”
“Photographs from, Landscape for the People, use the peculiar relationship between found images and operative items. The resulting photographs of these locations document the strange play of the functional environment and the idealized psychological landscape.”
Painting on Skin by Cecilia Paraedes
“I began to paint the landscape on my skin. I believe that painting the landscape on oneself is a reminder of where one has been, where one had roots, a reminder one has hanging from ones neck underneath the T-shirt.”
Who We Want to Be
Wijnanda Deroo says “As human beings we leave nothing untouched and create an artificial reality in our own private world, using whatever items we find which remind us of who we are, or who we want to be.
The Interventionists: Users manual for the creative disruption of everyday life.
“deepening interest in cultural practices that directly engage with social and political issues”
“explore things such as tactical media, collective art making, radical fashions and public reclamation projects”
“The 1920’2, late 1960’s and early 1980’s witnesses scores of politically committed artists and groups who invented and frequently re-invented the forms and organizational methods of art activism.”
“As if to underscore the urgency of intervention art, these events have once again placed issues of free speech and political dissent at the centre of the contemporary art world”
Nato Thompson and Gregory Sholette wrote:
“Steven Kutz is but one of hundreds of individuals, many of Muslim background, but also artists, academics and scientists who have come under increased surveillance and investigation by the government since the passing of the USA patriot act of 2001. By calling attention to the shrinking of civil liberties in America today, the CAE investigation has served to politically awaken a position of the art community while underscoring the risks that come with the creative disruption of everyday life.”
Joseph Thompson
“Politically inspired art (and worse, political action running under art’s banner), almost always leaves one cold. Nothing can suck the air around it like political art: so many words, so much ideology worn so transparently on the sleeve, so much certainty, and so little of interest to look at. For every artist like Jenny Holzer, whose work slices through the social sphere in ways that are resistant as they are elegant, there are a hundred artist – activists whose work dead-ends at truisms asserting truths.”
“Interventionist art does not always sit well in museums, produced as much as it was, to create situations in the world at large. In some cases, we resort to documentary evidence of previous actions. In others, artists offer clever reconstructions. In set others, this ephemeral work has no presence at all at MASS MOCA, having manifested itself on the streets of north adams and surrounding towns.”
“A cursory scan over the last 10 years of American art may lead one to believe that ‘political art’ has fallen out of fashion since artists like Barbara Kruger, Hans Haake, Leon Golub and Jenny Holzer centre stage in the early 1980’s” Fashionable or not it has still continued. “Instead of representing politics (whether through language or through visual image) many political artists of the 1990’s enter physically; that is, they place their work into the heart of the political situation itself.”
“‘Tactics’ is the key term for discussing interventionist practices, and it will be examined at greater depth later in this essay”
“Think of the word ‘tactics’ as a game/for the interventionist it is almost always the real world”
“In an era shaped by the phenomenon known as globalism, the aesthetic of intervention has been more warmly received outside the US than in it.”
The art “appeals to a viewer who is confronted by an increasing privatized and controlled visual world, Humour, sleight of hand and high design are used to interrupt this confrontation and bring socially imperative issues to the very feet of their audience.”
Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt
“The various analyses of ‘new social movements’ have done a great service in insisting on the political importance of cultural movements against narrowly economic perspectives that minimize their significance. These analysis’, however, are extremely limited themselves because, just like the perspectives they oppose, they perpetuate narrow understandings of the economic and the cultural movements, or really the increasing indistinguishability of economic and cultural phenomena.”
Krzysztof Wodiczko
“He coined the term “interrogative design” to describe these works that identify and heal social injuries. He compares them to bandages as they not only draw attention to the wound, but also work towards healing it.
In 1998 he was awarded the Hiroshima Prize for his contribution as an artist to world peace.
Homeless Vehicle - 1987-88 – Instrument of survival for urban nomads. A modified shopping cart that facilitates refundable bottle and can collection, it also provides temporary shelter. As a house on wheels intended for New York City sidewalks. It embodies Wodiczko’s practice of ‘interrogative design’. It provides sturdy refuge for the homeless and becomes a sidewalk intervention that draws attention to the condition of homelessness.
Other Artists Participation in Urban Struggle against the Effects of Reaganomics
· Like uneven urban redevelopment, revitalization (‘gentrification’) and the production of homelessness
· The critique of the city as an image produced by real estate action groups ( the image of ‘well managed city’); the British contribution to urban geography; the Birmingham school of cultural studies; the Feminist critique of representation as related to the image of the city and urban life; the British film journal screen and ZG magazine (in particular the writings of Rosetta Brooks, Sylvia Kolbowski, and Brian Hutton); the new museum exhibition, difference and sexuality, as seen in the context of writings by Rosalyn Deutshe on public art and Neil Smith uneven development; and the activism of Act-up, the intellectual interventions of Douglas Crimp, the activism and survival of east village squatters’ collectives, the built group, the projects of group material, and others.
“Sometimes it takes being useful to make oneself an artist” “being useful has many facets”
The concept ‘intervention’ is the key in the exhibition: what constitutes it for you?
“I try to contribute to the process of transformation of the fearful silence of invisible and unheard city residents (the participants) and of the deaf ear of those who are visible and heard (the public) into agonistic public discourse of ‘fearless’ speaking and listening. My artistic method has consisted of creating a socio-aesthetic situation that allows, inspires and protects a process where others may become (if only briefly) artists themselves. In this way my art may be used as a transition in the development of their lives and the lives of others, an articulation of the city silences and transmissions of the regained inhabitant voices – a newly developed ‘response – ability’ practiced with a sense of responsibility is, in my own opinion, an intervention.”
Michael Rakowitz born 1973, student of Wodiczko and followed the same idea of the interrogated design and created the parasite 2000 which is a structure made of plastic bags and tape that attaches to air vents in buildings and fills up the room will warm air for the homeless to sleep in.
William Pope L
His “work defines conventional expectations while dealing with familiar issues of class, race and consumerism.” “His art installations and performances use unconventional materials ranging from peanut butter to dollar bills.” In 2000 he performed ‘Eating the Wall Street Journal!’ he “literalized the notions of financial and information consumption, literally digesting the newspaper regarded as the seminal purveyor of news about American economics.
Haha
Consists of Wendy Jacobs, Laurie Palmer and John Ploof, Taxi, 2003, Chicago, performance piece. Messages appear over taxi’s such as “This is my second home” as it pulls into a holiday inn. It changes around. One was “who decides slums or model communities?
Craig Baldwin
“Is a pioneer independent film maker who has produced numerous practically satirical films including Tribulation 99: Alien Anomaly under America 1991; O No Coronado! 1992: Sonic Outlaws 1995: and Spectres of the spectrum 1992” He does a lot of billboard imagery.
“Has amassed a collection of studies documenting billboards whose originally intended message - usually an advertisement – have been altered or subverted.”
“Baldin changed some of the billboards himself but most of the interventions were undertaken by others, including the so-called...”
“Many were done anonymously, working the think lines between graffiti, art vandalism and civil disobedience.
The Biotic Baking Brigade
“Based around the world, The Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB) members are often seasoned activists in ecology, social justice, feminist, and animal rights movement. To protect themselves, their ‘agents’ take on pseudonyms such as agent apple, agent salmonberry or agent chocolate supreme. Their book ‘pie any means necessary’: The BBB cookbook is available from AK press.”
“They went around pieing people such as Major Willie Brown, Bill Gates, and reporter Jennifer Jolly and Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman”
“The BBB believes that under neoliberalism, we can all throw a pie in the face of economic fascism.
1999 The Pie is the Limit (28 minutes) edited and directed by A. Mark Liiv and Jeff Taylor, produced by whispered media. It is a documentation of them throwing pies in the faces of some of the most powerful figures in the world. They also pied the ex-president of the world trade organization, Renaldo Ruggiero, Hilmar Kabas of Vienna’s freedom party and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
“Our reactions are complex. If the act is embarrassing – either by its effect on the victim, or for its juvenile tactics – it also humanizes the target we empathise with the victims, who in many ways operate in a powerful world with which it is difficult to connect, And in other circumstances we might celebrate the prank.
God Bless Graffiti Coalition, founded 2000
· Huge collaboration of artists.
· Founded in Chicago
They quoted: To combat growing national and international anti-graffiti trends” the collective first published its brochure “Give Graffiti the Thumbs up” in 2001 to help educate the public regarding their perspective on graffiti. This small brochure was distributed on the streets by way of co-opting newspaper boxes in Chicago, Columbus, San Francisco and Los Angeles, also by a network of street artists. The successes of the initial brochure lead the collective to expand its activities to include subways ads and its latest endeavour, graffiti bible tracts.
“They have curate and assembles a collective of over 200 wheat paste posters from artists around the globe. These posters, which generally adorn the streets of major cities, present one of the most common and compelling forms of interventionist practices.”
“While some might view graffiti as vandalism, or petty crime, the coalition argues that graffiti, like advertising is simply a message delivered in a public space. Unlike ads, however, which use public space to encourage consumption, graffiti is simply a form of personal expression.
Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA)
“Concerned with individual and collective self determination, its missions are to study the forces and structures that affect self-determination, and to develop and utilize technologies that serve social and human needs”
“It is an anonymous collective of critically engaged artists, engineers and researchers.”
It “showcases three contestation robotic projects and one project from IIA’s inverse surveillance program, Little Brother, Graffitiwriter, and streetwriter are examples of contestation robotics, an IAA research initiative to develop technologies that meet the needs of street protesters. Contestation robots, or robotic objectors, are intended to support or replace human activists in environments that are hostile to acts of public dissent. For example streetwriter is a graffiti-writing robot disguised as a 1986 ford extended-body cargo van, capable of writing stealthy text messages that are hundreds of yards in length.
Their influences are hardcore punk and Saturday morning cartoons.
“The concept ‘interventionist’ is a key in the exhibition: what constitutes a intervention to you?”
They said “Intervention changes the behaviour of a system in a way that the system is not prepared to deal with.”
“Can there be revolutionary art without a revolution?”
They said “why not? There’s plenty of conceptual art without a clue.”
Oliver Ressler and Dario Azzellini
Since 1994 Oliver Ressler has worked in video, installations, and web-based formats to document pressing political issues. He has recently produced several widely screened documentaries including ‘This is what democracy looks like’, 2002 and Rote Zora 2000. Some of his topics include corporate culture, racism and ecology, all in the context of global protest movement.
Dario is a frequent collaborator of Ressler. His film projects include ‘Autonomy’ (Nicaragua 1993) and interview with Paco Ignacio Taibo ll (Mexico 1997) and Al Norte (Mexico 1998)
Disobbedienti 2002
There are “Documents of a group of Italian activists who participated in many of the global-justice protests that punctuated the late 1990’s. An out growth of a group calling themselves the Tutte Bianche were seen as amongst the most viable, effective and radical activist groups, making a speciality of the large scale street protests. The Tutte Bianche were known for wearing white coveralls and cladding the bodies from head to toe in padding, helmets, gas masks and shields.
“After the G8 summit (where the street protesters took a more dramatic and violent turn, including one fatality), the Tutte Bianche disbanded, reorganising as disobbedienti instead of focusing on ‘civil disobedience’, their energy turned towards ‘social disobedience’.” Whereas civil disobedience utilizes law-breaking as a form of social protest (such as crossing a police line during a rally), social disobedience takes aim at oppressive social codes. The subtle differences between these two terms are explored in this film and in short represents a growing interest in longer term strategies and a willingness to address more difficult, it diffuses issues between the global protest movement.
The Routledge Companion to Feminism to Post-Feminism
“Can generally be stated as the struggle to increase women’s access to equality ina male dominant culture”. Although “there has never been a universally agreed agenda for feminism” “The post-feminist debate merely dramatises a situation which has always in fact, held true for feminism, a movement which thrives on diversity. So, to read post-feminism as indicating that the feminist movement has fragmented beyond the point of no return could be a misinterpretation, since it may constitute nothing more than the latest divergence in the constantly shifting parameters of feminist thought.
Chris Weedon’s definition in feminist practice and poststructuralist theory 1987:
“The term ‘patriarchal’ refers to power relations in which women’s interests are subordinated to the interest of men. These power relations take on many forms, from the sexual division of labour and social organisation of procreation to the internalized norms of femininity by which we live. Patriarchal power rests on social meaning given to biological sexual difference. It was very difficult for women to achieve economic independence, and so marriage was one of the few ways in which women could secure their futures.
Other inequalities: unless exceptional circumstances prevailed, upon marriage, all property received that belonged to the wife, and all property that she received, automatically became her husbands.
The financial arrangements of marriage throughout the period were largely this: a wife would bring a ‘dowry’ with her, which was a substantial an amount property (money, valuables, land) as she and her family could put together. In return, the husband provided a ‘jointure’, maintaining her for the rest of her life. Child bearing was a major role, to provide a male heir to her husband’s land and titles or to provide a source of labour. Women had no rights over their children: the bringing up, education and disposal in marriage were entirely the preserve of the father. It was seen this way in the eyes of the law. In case of separation (divorce was not possible for some) the father could prevent the mother having contact.
Most feminist writers of the period sought to challenge the prevailing idea that women were an inferior branch of the human race, tainted by Eve’s transgression in the Garden of Eden with fewer capabilities than men for moral behaviour and rational thought. Events in 1550-1700 presented women with grounds upon which to challenge the inevitability of patriarchal authority. The long and successful reign of Elizabeth l (1558-1603) and the cultural influence of powerful women such as Anna of Denmark (Queen to James Vl and l), the countess of Bedford, the countess of Penbroke and Henrietta Maria (queen of Charles l) demonstrated that, given the right opportunities, women could flourish in politics and the arts. 1660 the rise of professional women in the arts as performer, dramatists and poet gave both an effective channel to express feminist ideas and a practical vehicle for giving the lie to notions of women’s inferiority.
Classical philosophy, the scriptures and the early church all pronounced upon women, in almost exclusively masculine voices. Aristotelian philosophy seemed women to be ‘inferior’ (last and lesser) later, in medieval Europe, the Querelle Des Femmes developed: a literary debate where male writers attacked and re-defended women. The humanist philosophers of the renaissance generally put forward enlightened views of women, especially with regard to their education, yet with the caveat, they confined their learning to the private, domestic sphere. In his education of a Christian woman, 1540 Juan Luis wrote:
It neither becometh a woman to rule a school, nor to live among men, or speak abroad, and shake off her demureness and honesty, either altogether or else a great part: which if she be good. It were better to be at home within and unknown to other folks. And in company to hold her tongue demurely. And let few see her, and none at all hear her...For Adam was the first made, and after Eve, and Adam was not betrayed, the woman was betrayed into the breach of the commandment. Therefore because a woman is a frail thing, and of weak discretion, and that may lightly be deceived: Which thing our first mother Eve sheweth, whom the devil caught with a light argument. Therefore a woman should not teach, lest when she hath taken a false opinion and believe of anything, she spread it into the hearers.
In an age where an ideal of female behaviour was ‘chaste, silent and obedient’, the very act of a woman publishing or publicly pronouncing her own polemic, constitute a challenge to patriarchal authority and can therefore be identifies as ‘feminist’.
Jane Anger 1589 put a different gloss on genesis.
Her protection for women:
The creation of man and woman at the first, he being formed...of dross and filthy clay, did so remain until god saw in him his workmanship was good, and therefore by the transformation of the dust which was loathsome into flesh it became purified. Then lacking a help for him, God, Making woman of man’s flesh she might become purer than he, doth evidently show how far we woman are more excellent than men.
Anger here refutes the notion of ‘posterior et inferior’, using the progression of god’s creation to point out that logically, Eve is last and best.
Rachel Speght wrote, A muzzle for Melastromus 1617, arguing that if women are the weaker sex, then Eve cannot take full responsibility for the fall, because the stronger Adam should have prevented her:
Satan first assailed the woman, because where the hedge is lowest, most is it is to get over, and she being the weaker vessel were with more facility to be seduced. Like as a crystal glass sooner receives a glass than a strong stone pot. Yet we should find the offence of Adam and Eve almost to parallel: for as an ambitious desire of being made like into god was the motive which caused her to eat, so likewise was it his...And if Adam has not approved of that deed which Eve had done, and been willing to tread the steps which she had gone, he, being her head would have reproved her, and have made the commandment a bit to restrain him from breaking his master’s injunction.
