The Male and Female Gaze

Introduction to Gallery

Throughout history, marriage has been seen as a special moment for women. It’s a day when a woman is dressed up, doted on by her family and friends, and is obtaining what people believe women want: a husband, and to become a mother.  As Jerome Nadelhaft stated in his book, The Englishwoman’s Sexual Civil War: Feminist Attitudes towards Men, Women, and Marriage 1650-1740, “Their hot, moist humors made them overly passionate and emotional, sometimes more violent and rebellious. They were chatterers and scolds, flirts,…

Introduction

CW: heavy discussions of rape, rape culture, and victim blaming.

A 1993 anthology titled Transforming a Rape Culture spearheaded discourse of the weaponized society against women that we inhabit. Editors define rape culture as, “a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent…A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the…

Introduction

Mary Wollstonecraft’s excerpt Vindication of the Rights of Women explores major topics during her period. She captures what it is like to be a woman, while simultaneously arguing that women want a sense of purpose. She argues that women have a desire for education and want a role outside of domestic house duties. In contrast, Patmore created a poem The Angel in the House to put women inside a box essentially. He affirms traditional Victorian values by placing women on a pedestal…

Introduction

Through comparison of male and female-created artworks of Judith beheading her rapist, Holofernes, male ideology of women's emotional capacity being limited to that of embodying good, moral centers with demure and gentle dispositions can be observed through the differing depictions of Judith, her maidservant, and Holofernes. Even in the event of a woman beheading her rapist, male artists work to frame it in a light that fits within their patriarchal ideologies. In Artemesia Gentileschi's Judith Slaying…