Why?
circa. The middle of the month Spring 1972
When trying to take into account all that this image has to offer, these events and many more can help the world to understand Arlene Gottfried and her work. This image in particular, Eddie Sun’s Friend Ironing, was taken in 1972, just two years after the August of 1970 Women’s Strike. Understanding this strike would also help us to understand that this image is too fighting back against traditional roles that the strike was. The August of 1970 strike was labeled as the largest since the original strike in the early 1900s, when women were fighting for the right to vote. This strike, and the fight that women in the time were having, is represented in this image with how May Wong is dressed as the traditional housewife. This role was one that many women to get away from, and were fighting against. I also wanted to take into account that Arlene Gottfried made it her mission to capture people as they are, and in Eddie Sun’s Friend Ironing she managed to do just that. Gottfried loved to wander, and explore, and her work captured wherever she found herself ending up. May Wong in this image was just as she was, she was getting ready, and Gottfried captured her in the middle of it.