The Representation Of Gender Based Biases In Art

Across history and ancient times, it has been practiced that man should rule the world. It is the man who hunts, fight during the war, and a breadwinner while women’s role was unimportant. Women were disregarded, their voice was not heard, their opinions didn’t matter, nor was their status critical. It was believed that women should stay secluded at home to tend to their young ones, do the housework and attend to their husband’s desires. In today’s modern society, though norms have progressively changed throughout the century, women are still experiencing gender biased in their family, their community and culture.

Westerners and countries alike settle down and start a family by marrying the person they love however in countries like Bangladesh, India, and Yemen these are not the situation. Child marriage is on the earliest form of gender inequality in mankind’s histories. Some as young as eight are handed off too much older man. Laws have been passed to stop this gender biased, but it is still widespread among rural places where poverty is widespread with lack of access to education (Plan International, 2015). A child is still at a stage where her body is not fully mature or developed to carry another child inside of her poses high risk of miscarriages and even death to both mother and child.

Here I selected he Gender Equality mural painted by Joel Bergner, Krishna Sharma, and students from Sophia College displayed in the street of Mumbai, India. The artist is trying to imply gender equality struggle by the women in India. In addition to child brides, genital mutilation is another form of gender biased against women. World Health Organization defined genital mutilation as “procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons”. This is widely practiced in African and Muslim countries believing these will remove the women’s sexual desires. The image I chose to symbolize this is by Aida Sylvestri from “Unsterile Clinic,” 2015 intended to raise awareness of female genital mutilation.

Finally, society prefers a man’s voice because we can assume that their low voices convey something far beyond words. Man’s voice is more attractive, masculine and suitable for leaders while women can be high pitched and irritating. The last art I chose is from Louise Bourgeois – Femme Maison, 1946-47 showing women in the bathroom but their faces are covered. Art is a powerful medium that an artist uses to describe life, experience, or a point of view. Its goal is to pass future generation practices, information and event happenings that happened ages ago, to preserve cultural heritage. Women from ancient times were not treated as equal to the man. Thought some hold high status in their society, this still does not matter. Even if we live in the modern day world, again society view women as an inferior being than men.