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REVIEWS
Framing
Feminism:
Art
and
the
Women's
~ovement1970-1985
Edited
by
R.
Parker
and
G.
Pollock
Pandora: London 1987,£9.95
Pbk
Looking
On:
Images
of
Femininity
in
the
Visual
Arts
and
~edia
Edited
by
R.
Betterton
Pandora: London 1987
,£
7.95
Pbk
These two collections
are
welcome
for reasons
quite
apart
from
their
formal merits. Firstly,
they
bring
together
material
previously avail-
able only
in
less accessible form.
Many
of
the
longer articles
reprinted
here
had
their
first publication
in
small circulation and/or specialist
journals. Bringing
them
together
is
of
real
service
to
teachers
and
stu
-
dents
as
well
as
to those who would
welcome
the
chance to
make
the
acquaintance
of
a
broad
and
increas-
ingly diversified body
of
feminist
work. Additionally,
the
Parker
and
Pollock collection offers more ephem-
e
ral
texts
-reviews,
shorter
articles,
introductions to exhibitions, cam-
paign
lit
erature
- a
range
of
records
Fe
minist
Review No 32,
Summer
1989
that
are
difficult
to
get
hold of for
anyone who
was
not
present
or
in-
volved
at
the
time.
Taken
together,
these
comprise a
history
of
the
shifts
in
a body of work whose
most
elabor-
ated
positions
have
come to
assume
an
almost taken-for-granted
status
.
Despite
the
poor
quality
of
some
of
the
images reproduced
in
facsimile
form,
th
is
format,
the
basis
of
Parker
and
Pollock
's
'Historical Anthology'
really does give a
taste
of
the
seven-
ties
.
It
heightens a sense
of
the
processes
at
work
in
examining
the
issues which have become increas-
ingly
central
in
de
ba
tes
about
the
stat
us
of
the
visual image
and
its
specificity for discu
ss
ions offeminin-
ity
and
the
meaning
of
the
feminine.
Secondly,
they
provide
an
oppor-
tunity
for
the
revaluation
and
reass-
essment
of
the
work
and
politics
of
the
seventies
and
of
how
the
feminist
project
expan
ded
and
advanced. This
is
so bec
ause
these
collections
repr
e-
sent
not
just
th
e evolution
and
re-
finement
of
a
set
of
debates
, however
important
they
have
proved,
but,
through
the
concentration on visual
imagery, on
art
history
and
the
con-
ditions
of
artistic
practice,
they
also
give
us
a history of women's liber-
ation
and
its
concerns: t
he
challenge
to received a c
co
unt
s,
th
e
exa
min-
ation
and
exposure of
the
biological
roots of dominant cultural accounts,
the
prejudices of established disci-
plines
and
their
modes of working,
the
relevance of class
and
race,
the
restricted access to facilities,
the
im-
portance of collective work,
the
ir-
reduceable fact of sexual difference
and
its
structuring
of
the
lives of
women
and
men. Besides being a
history of a
particular
arena, these
collections offer
the
chance to revisit
earlier debates
and
to reassess
them
in
the
light of
the
discussion about
the
specific constraints
and
prob-
lems faced by one
particular
group of
women
in
learning
what
it
meant
to
be a woman
and
an
artist,
to be
associated with
the
art
world, to be
engaged
in
the
attempt
to construct
new forms of
art
that
could represent
a distinctively feminist
art
or ques-
tion
its
possibility. Some of
the
issues
that
proved most intractable about
the
relevance of women's liberation
to
the
masses of women
and
the
alleged elitism of
its
concerns
are
given
an
even more , exaggerated
slant
in
the
context of
art
and
its
associations: for example
Susan
Hiller's consciousness-raising group
wanted
her
to give
up
art
and
go
back
to anthropology. 'The only concei-
vably useful
thing
I could
do
was to
make posters. I did that.
It
was
difficult for me to
assert
my right to
make
art.
It
was very undermining.'
There is probably something impor-
tant
about British intellectual cul-
ture
here.
That
was in 1973,
but
there
is still ample evidence from
within
the
world of feminist
artists
and
art
historians of
the
discomfort
with certain forms of abstraction or
the
theoretical bases of
the
work of
some of
the
artists
or with
the
lack of
immediate gratification or under-
standing
their
work allows. This is
an
instance of feminism replaying
wider cultural debates in ways speci-
fic
to it,
but
it
also emphasizes
the
gap between more specialized know-
ledges about
art
and
its
discourses
and
the
extent to which,
under
the
rubric of a feminist engagement with
Reviews 119
the
visual media, quite specialized
discussions have become increas-
ingly relevant. Both these books aim
to provide a way into
this
array
of
complex debates. Each begins with
overviews
that
signpost
the
impor-
tant
themes, account for
their
emergence
at
a particular time
in
a
particular way
and
provide a kind of
reading strategy to engage with
the
major issues. Betterton is not expli-
citly addressing
the
practices
and
campaigns of
the
seventies
but
she
too is concerned with a history of
issues
that
have focused feminist
attention: one of
her
sections for
instance, summarizes
the
debates on
pornography.
Her
introduction
'Feminism, femininity, represen-
tation' describes
an
increasingly
tight
relation between a politics of
women
and
a concern with
the
visual
and
its
presence
in
our culture. Both
she,
and
Parker
and
Pollock,
are
concerned with how feminist
criticism, by worrying away
at
the
importance of femininity
and
the
visual means through which certain
accounts of
it
are
produced,
has
ex-
tended
and
further
developed issues
under
discussion elsewhere. Areas
selected out by both books include
the
status
of
the
artist,
the
particu-
lar
relations established between
image
and
spectator
and
the
vital
link
between looking
and
pleasure,
the
latter
one of
the
most significant
of feminist contributions to work in
this
vital area.
Most of
the
articles reprinted in
the
Betterton collection were written
in
the
eighties;
as
such, they endorse
positions
that
were arrived
at
through intensive debate.
Her
intro-
ductions to
the
various sections aim
to place these
later
pieces
and
explain
their
historical
and
intellec-
tual
contexts. She says
that
it
was
her
practice
as
a teacher
that
led
her
to
want
a text
that
would introduce
students
to
the
variety of material
available
and
assist in
their
under-
standing
of it. The first section
discusses
the
analysis of visual
images primarily
in
relation to
120 Feminist Review
advertising;
the
next section focuses
on representations of
the
'sexual
woman' in some radically different
visual traditions - a Pre-Raphaelite
painting,
the
work of Robert Mapple-
thorpe,
the
tabloid press. The
third
presents
the
opposing positions on
pornography,
and
the
last
brings
together a group of articles
under
the
rubric of women's work on
the
female
body. Neither
the
selection of articles
nor
the
reasons for
that
selection
seems to be very tightly argued
but
this is less important
than
the
fact of
having a selection which brings to-
gether such a range of often-
referred-to articles.
It
is worth noting too
that
the
extent of work in
this
area
(not
just
the
different aims of
the
two books)
means
that
only one article,
an
article by Lisa Tickner
that
discusses
the
use of
the
body
in
the
work of some contemporary women
artists, appears in both selections.
The
extra
material
made available
by
Parker
and
Pollock gives
its
re-
production
there
an
added
interest
since they also reproduce
an
edi-
torial comment about
the
piece
that
appeared in Apollo magazine
and
a
letter
from
the
author
that
Apollo
had
ignored.
Apart
from
this
article,
worth placing in both books,
the
collections
are
complementary in
that
they address different aspects of
feminist
interest
in
the
status
of
art
and
images.
The
Parker
and
Pollock collec-
tion casts a wider
net
though
it
too
emphasizes
the
links between femi-
ninity
and
the
representation of
women. The
se~ection
includes
articles
and
documents regarding
the
practices, institutions, artistic
conventions
and
criteria of evalu-
ation from
the
beginnings of British
feminist activity in
this
field.
It
in-
cludes two introductory articles;
the
first, 'Fifteen Years of Feminist
Action', describes
the
development of
Women's Liberation, its influence on
women
artists
and
the
issues
that
emerged from
the
application of
the
political project of feminism to
the
place of
art
and
discussions about it.
This
chapter
also gives a summary of
important events, exhibitions
and
debates of those years. The second
article, 'Feminism
and
Modernism',
is a description of feminist
art
as
embodying a commitment to a socio-
political concern
that
is opposed to
the
inheritance of latter-day
modernism,
at
least in
its
associ-
ations
with
a
particular
set
of styles
and
cultural
and
economic values.
The
strength
of
this
collection
lies in
its
unequivocal commitment
to feminism
and
to
the
exploration of
what
it
has
meant
and
continues to
mean
to
think
about being a woman,
being a feminist
and
being interested
in
art,
whether
as
producer, resear-
cher or consumer. Somewhat para-
doxically perhaps, I found
this
strength
to be
the
source of some
dissatisfaction when
it
comes to
the
overviews. I found myself wanting
more detail on
the
art
practices with
which feminists found themselves in
disagreement, more development of
the
relation of
the
chosen forms of
feminist work to
the
wider styles of
the
time
and
the
appropriation of
certain styles with
an
explicit intent.
And I missed a more in-depth
account of
the
challenges
and
the
excitement of
the
modernist endeav-
our
in some of
its
historic manifest-
ations.
In
short, I missed
the
sense of
the
pleasure of various
art
forms, of
why women
want
to be artists,
the
delight, however complicated
and
in
need of examination,
that
forms of
creativity can provoke. This is mis-
sing from both introductions
and
while it may be acceptable
in
the
Betterton collection I found
it
disap-
pointing in
Parker
and
Pollock.
There is, however, a sense, both
in
the
introductions
and
in
the
pieces
selected, of
an
increasingly complex
set
of issues
and
an
increasingly
sophisticated response. From
the
in-
itial recognition
that
as
both women
and
artists
they faced certain prob-
lems
and
constraints,
the
women's
art
movement expanded to examine
the
defining features of
the
con-
ditions of artistic practice,
the
availability of exhibition space,
the
conventions of
the
gallery,
the
pres-
ence of women in
art
education,
the
hierarchies of
past
artists
and
the
discursive place of'the woman
artist'
as
something different from
'the
ar-
tists'. They took on
the
dominant
discourses of
art
history,
its
pre-
ferred forms
and
the
status
of
its
most favoured approaches
and
in
mounting a sustained challenge to
its assumptions they contributed to
some reformulation of
its
bounda-
ries.
These activities were paralleled
by intensive debate about
the
mode
and
forms of work most appropriate
to
and
consistent with
the
goals of
feminism.
What
is
art
for
and
by
women?
Is
there
something
distinctive about feminist
art?
Is
there
a feminine aesthetic? Is
the
fact of being a woman making a
personal
statement
enough to guar-
antee
the
validity of
an
artistic prod-
uct? Are there alternative criteria for
judgement of such work,
and
if
so,
what
are
they?
In
their
introduction
(supported by
the
pieces
that
appear
later),
Parker
and
Pollock
present
the
1980 conference 'Questions on
Women's Art',
as
a significant occa-
sion for
the
registering of profound
disagreements about
the
answers to
such questions. While not denying
the
existence of differing approaches
Out
of
Focus: Writings
on
Women
and
the
Media
Kath
Davies,
Julienne
Dickey
and
Theresa
Stratford
The Women's Press: London, 1987,
£5.95Pbk
Boxed
In:
Women
and
Television
Helen
Baehr
and
Gillian Dyer
Pandora:
New
York 1987, £7.95 Pbk.
It
is now more
than
ten
years since
Virago published Mary
Stott
and
Josephine King's Is This Your Life?,
Reviews
121
before this, they tended to
stress
areas
of similarity, for instance
pointing to
the
commitment to use
childbirth or menstruation
as
the
focus of work both by
artists
con-
vinced of
the
existence of a specifi-
cally feminine approach
and
those
who would reject such a position
and
insist on
the
constructedness
and
instability of
the
feminine
and
how it
is understood. The divergent posi-
tions were always there: sustained
engagement with them
has
led to
radically different practices by femi-
nist
artists. These derive from differ-
ent
theories about women
and
the
understanding of sexual difference
but
they
also relate to different ass-
essments of
an
engagement with
the
art
world
and
its traditions.
In
both
these
areas
there
are
quite irrecon-
cilable differences. One considera-
tion
that
could have illuminated
this
is
the
difference
in
responses by
British
and
US
artists
to these ques-
tions;
it
is something
that
is only
mentioned
in
passing but, in
its
in-
flection of national traditions
and
contexts,
it
could have been a useful
reference point. This aside, these
collections offer
an
introduction to
the
variety of work
that
has
been
produced
and
give some indication of
the
things to consider in
taking
a
position oneself.
Lesley
Caldwell
(Stott
and
King 1977),
their
contri-
bution to debate
and
struggle over
images of women in
the
media. This
last
decade
has
seen
few
books at-
tempting to develop our understand-
ing of
the
representation of women in
the
media,
its
relationship to
women's employment in radio, tele-
vision or journalism, or
the
ways
that
women 'read' or
understand
broadcast programmes or articles.
The publication of
Out
of
Focus
and
Boxed
In
will
thus
be received with
interest
by
many
feminists.
Out
of
Focus sets out to examine
media sexism, while recognizing