In this series I attempted to portray the institutionalized oppression of gender. My hope in showing this work was to involve those more privileged than me in this conversation, so that they could be part of the change. I was mostly disappointed by the responses from men in my 2013 exhibition. I found myself feeling more objectified or misunderstood, as if I was exaggerating women’s reality or attempting to vilify men. I wasn’t. It took me a while to recover from that level of exposure and sense of defeat.
I identified as a white, cisgendered, mostly heterosexual, able-bodied female, of adequate means living in America. Thus, my work was limited to the scope of my own privilege. However, fascinated by creating luminosity through blue tints, I chose to paint the women in these paintings with blue skin and to not show their faces (my face), in an attempt to represent all women.
In August 2013, I created a series of interactive events that coincided with an exhibition of this series. The first event was a gallery opening and talk. The next event was an evening of music, performances and movement in response to my work. The final event was a sharing circle with participants ranging in age from 20-92, men, women, intersex, transgender, and queer. It was a facilitated circle in which each person had the opportunity to share their response to my work. https://www.aminare.com/performances/
Below are some quotes and definitions that relate to this series:
Eve Ensler, “I don’t understand how violence against women became a women’s issue….. We are not raping ourselves. If this doesn’t become THE men’s issue, we are going to see a perpetuation of a society that degrades and destroys women to the point of destruction of life itself.”
Michael Kimmel, “Privilege is invisible to the privileged.”
Dictionary, “Institutional Oppression occurs when established laws, customs, and practices systematically reflect and produce inequities based on oneʼs membership in targeted social identity groups. If oppressive consequences accrue to institutional laws, customs, or practices, the institution is oppressive whether or not the individuals maintaining those practices have oppressive intentions.”
Author unknown, “Our entire civilization is still in its adolescence ………The problem is not that we live under patriarchy but thatwe don’t. A patriarchy would be the rule of the mature masculine; what we live under now is apuerarchy, the rule ofthe immature masculine. The puer aeternus in Jungian psychology is the “eternal child.” Like Michael Jackson or Peter Pan, many men in this culture refuse, to some extent, to grow up. Growing up means taking responsibility for your life. Instead, our entire civilization is built around the “mother complex,” the idea that women and the Earth should be our slave and spoon- feed us. This “passive dependent” relationship soon turns into a passive-aggressive one, for men both expect and resent this perceived arrangement. This frustrated sense of entitlement leads to acting out, i.e., misogynist and misogaist (earth-hating) behavior.”