Humanities & Social Sciences
April 2021
Women in The Picture
What culture does with women's bodies
by Catherine McCormack
A feminist art history and a fierce challenge to the ways we depict, and are taught to see, women’s bodies. Plunging into the realms of art history, popular visual culture and advertising, McCormack opens our eyes to how archetypal depictions of women – as mothers, daughters, Venuses, whores, dolls, nasty women, etc. – have encouraged us to objectify and subjugate, and to normalise violence towards them. Taking in classic works of art by the likes of Titian and Picasso, as well as contemporary representations of women in everything from Hollywood films to perfume advertisements to censored Instagram images, McCormack reconsiders the context in which images of women have been produced, displayed and reproduced – and the appeal to ‘beauty’ that has stopped us from seeing the misogyny of some of the world’s ‘greatest’ artists and public figures. It’s time to learn new ways of seeing. Sharp edged and stylish, WOMEN IN THE PICTURE is a twenty-first-century update to John Berger’s classic Ways of Seeing that slyly neutralizes the sexism of traditional art history. An essential read for art enthusiasts, women’s history buffs, and anyone looking to change how they see.
