In this day in
age, one of the most current political causes are female rights. According to
the article, Feminist
activist women are masculinized in terms of digit-ratio and social dominance: a
possible explanation for the feminist paradox by Guy Madison, Ulrika Aasa, John Wallert, and Michael A.
Woodley, “The feminist
movement purports to improve conditions for women, and yet only a minority of
women in modern societies self-identify as feminists. This is known as the
feminist paradox. It has been suggested that feminists exhibit both
physiological and psychological characteristics associated with heightened
masculinization, which may predispose women for heightened competitiveness,
sex-atypical behaviors, and belief in the interchangeability of sex roles” (people).
In other words, there have been major improvements when it comes to women’s
right. But, it is still not enough; some topics that revolved around women are
not considered as serious topics. Fortunately, there are several artists that
tackle these subjects.
#MeToo
I plan on making this project based on the #MeToo
movement. I feel the topic of rape and sexual assault needs to be discussed
more in our society. There is a high climate of rape and sexual assault charges
in our society, but some of those cases are either false or sweated under the
rug. Sandra Newman, writer of “What kind of person makes false rape
accusations?” from Quartz states:
But
my research—including academic studies, journalistic accounts, and cases
recorded in the US National Registry of Exonerations—suggests that every part
of this narrative is wrong. What’s more, it’s wrong in ways that help real
rapists escape justice, while perversely making it more likely that we will
miss the signs of false reports.
In other words, it is
difficult to categorized what is considered rape or not. The reason
why I want to base my semester project on this subject is because I know a
person close to me who has been sexually assaulted, and their story needs to be
heard; just like the other survivors of sexual abuse.
Comic Logo
My graphic novel was based off of a
woman who was sexually assaulted and becomes a vigilante and goes after rapist
and gives them justice. The purpose of this is how the character of the story
turned a negative to a positive. I want the charterer of my story to empower
people who are affected by sexual assault. I feel that in real life, people who
are victims of rape, they do not get any justice at the end. People who commit
these crimes usually walk free. According to Lindsey Weedston, of, Don’t
Let Alleged Rapist Walk Free “An 18-year-old man was recently charged with raping two
women in one night and was only given probation. Worse, if he upholds the
conditions of his probation, his case will be dropped, and he won’t have to add
his name to the sex offender registry. All this man has to do is not use drugs
or alcohol and avoid contact with his victims for two years, and it all goes
away.” I wanted to
create a hero because, sometimes, rape survivors have no real heroes. The
inspiration behind this graphic novel is based on the superhero craze.
Superheroes are meant to make people feel empowered, and that is the goal.
The content behind my graphic novel is
going to based off of Ana Mendita, the Guerrilla Girls, Liz Prince, and Georges
Jeanty. Each of these artists play a role in this comic. For instance, Ana
Mendita influenced the domestic injustice towards women and rape, the Guerrilla
Girls influenced on women empowerment, Liz Prince influenced by the use of
black and white in her illustrations, and Georges Jeanty influenced the drawing
style of this comic.
Guerrilla Girls
Do women have to
be naked to get into the Met. Museum?1989
The Guerrilla Girls are a group of female
artists, activists, and feminists that use their platform to speak out against
injustice for women. The Guerrilla Girls have been active since 1985, calling
out the art world on the injustice on how women are represented in art. The
Guerrilla Girls are women who are known to wear gorilla masks. They prefer to
keep their real identities a secret because they want their work to speak for
itself. The Guerrilla Girls work consists of poster work with large text
speaking about multiple topics involving injustice for women. For instance, in “Do
Women Have to be Naked to Get into the Met. Museum? 1989”, piece made a powerful statement. The screen print displays a
naked woman posing very provocatively wearing a gorilla mask. This is
displaying how women are objectified to be sexual in art. In most famous art
pieces there is usually naked woman objectified to the male gaze. According to,
Seeing Power Art and Activism in the 21st
Century by Nato Thompson, “Critique is
often not much more than a strategy of using someone else’s interita to
perpetuate oneself forward. This form of participation in an infrastructure is
quite common and has long been part of the Avantgarde tradition” (Thompson, 101).
In particular, the Guerrilla Girls are critiquing on the lack of inequality and
support for women in the art community. In the screen print, there are
important statistics how 5% of artist in modern art sections are women, but 85%
of that are nude. Apparently, women have to be naked to gain any type of
recognition in the art community. According to the Guerrilla Girls website,
“Bitches of the world unite.” Be tough, get what you want, be a real Bitch. But
don’t let anyone else call you one” (Guerrilla Girls). Women have to work
harder to prove that they can be up to par with the men in any field. It is
easier for men to be acknowledged compared to women.
Ana Mendieta
Untitled Rape Scene
Ana Mendieta first came to
this country as an immigrant, she immigrated to this country from Cuba.
Mendieta had humble beginnings; growing up in foster care and living in country
not knowing the language or the culture. Mendieta found art as a
scapegoat. Ana
Mendieta is a feminist and very political, she incorporates that in her work.
Mendieta’s work consists of performance art and videography. Mendieta
believed that body was very interesting, she incorporated her body in a lot of
her performance pieces. An example of her work “Untitled (Rape Scene)”;
consists of a reenactment of a rape and murder that occurred in her college
campus. Mendieta wanted to showcase how lifeless she was as a dead woman who
was raped, she wanted to convey the audience and make them feel uncomfortable.
With this performance piece she relied on shock value. According to The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the
Creative Disruption of Everyday Lives by Nato Thompson and Gregory Sholette
states, “Let us think of the term tactic as
a maneuver within a game and for the interventionist, the game is the real
world. Their projects are made to operate within various systems of power in
the real world and they use the techniques of art to maneuver within it”
(People 97-98). To emphasize, Mendieta devoted her work on women issues. Her
catalog consists of tackling issues that revolving around domestic violence,
rape, and many other issues that are very important. According to the article, Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture
and Performance by Megan Heuer states, “Ana Mendieta has become something of an
art world myth. Born in Cuba in 1948, but exiled to the United States as a
child, she is the beautiful young multicultural woman artist working with ideas
and forms of gender and culture in the heyday of feminist art and identity
politics.” Mendieta was able to shed light on topics such as rape,
domestic violence, and injustice towards women. These topics are not really
considered a serious if it was not for Ana Mendieta.
Liz Prince
Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir 2014
Liz Prince
is a well-known cartoonist and illustrator. Prince is known for her use of
black and white style, some called it sketchbook style. Prince captured the use
of negative and positive space in her work. Her work consisted of books that
she wrote and illustrated herself and multiple publications. Most of her books
follow important themes of a person’s upbringing. For instance, Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir 2014, the book consisted
of a story of how she grew up discovering who she was a young girl who is also
discovering her sexuality. Georges
Jeanty is a graphic novel illustrator. Jeanty is known for his detailed
illustrations, his style is very sharp and clean. He has done illustrations for
Batman comics, and Deadpool comics but he is more known for
Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics. Jeanty
was able to bring characters from an old television series to life in pages,
Jeanty was able to capture faces of real people and illustrated them in a way
that it is recognizable to the characters from the tv series.
Georges Jeanty
Sample of work
The “#MeToo”
movement has created a wave of awareness. This movement inspired many sexually
assaulted individuals to stand up and speak out against sexual harassment and
violence. Despite that Hollywood glamorized this topic and turned the
movement and having others taking credit for this movement or putting every bad
experience categorized as sexual assault. This movement is creating awareness
and an open dialogue that will eventually turn into solutions.
Works Cited
Thompson, Nato. “Seeing Power Art and Activism in the 21st Century,”
(Melville House Publishing, 2015).
Madison,
Guy. Aasa, Ulrika. Wallert, John. Woodley,
Michael A. “Feminist activist women are
masculinized in terms of digit-ratio and social dominance: a possible
explanation for the feminist paradox,” (Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden, Department
of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden, Center
Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, 2014).
Weedston, Lindsey. “Don’t Let
Alleged Rapist Walk Free.” ForceChange, https://forcechange.com/160662/denounce-complete-lack-of-jail-time-for-convicted-rapist/
Thompson,
Nato. Sholette, Gregory. “The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative
Disruption of Everyday Lives,” (MASS MoCA Publications North Adams,
Massachusetts, 2004).
