COLLECTION NAME:
Undergraduate Thesis Collection
Record
Title:
A Woman's Place: Womanhouse and 1970s Gender Roles in Advertisements
Creator:
Thoni, Rachel
Subject:
Thesis (B.F.A.) -- Art History
Subject:
Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Art History
Rights:
Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Abstract:
"During January of 1972, artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, together with twenty-three female students from CalArts, created a large-scale feminist exhibition entitled Womanhouse. This exhibition aimed to create an uncensored environment in which female artists could collaborate to express their unique perceptions of what it was like to be a woman within 1970s post-world war America. The combination of these artists' experiences created an environment that opposed the hegemonic American expectation for women within society. Second wave feminism was occurring within America during the time, greatly altering the cultural gender dynamics. This paper argues that the Womanhouse exhibition was a counterhegemonic critique of the cultural expectations of post-world war women as depicted in early 1970s American advertisements. To demonstrate this, this paper will conduct an iconographical analysis of six works within Womanhouse and compare each to post-war print advertisements from magazines that were popular in the 1970s. These magazines include Woman and Home, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, LIFE, and Newsweek. Each reinforced mainstream gender roles and identities from this period to a different demographic of the culture. Advertisements, and how women were represented, as seen in this variety of popular publications provide a foundation for understanding the widely held cultural perspective of women in contrast to the depictions of the roles within Womanhouse. These comparisons provide insights into the 1970s American perspective of prescribed female roles, and how these roles were critiqued by Womanhouse." --Abstract
Keywords: Womanhouse, Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, feminist art, Second wave feminism, post-war art, gender roles, advertisements
Keywords: Womanhouse, Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, feminist art, Second wave feminism, post-war art, gender roles, advertisements
Publisher:
Savannah, Georgia: Savannah College of Art and Design
Date:
2019-08
Format:
1 online resource: 1 PDF (Thesis, 56 pages, color illustrations)