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Could you talk a little about your “decidedly and unapologetic feminist view” in accordance with this series?
I married at 20 – in retrospect, too early. I am still married and am now raising a son. For most of my life, I studied and worked mostly with men, and found it easy to get along; there is nothing personal in my restating of the fact that for a very long time our society has been run as a patriarchy and still has not fully overcome this.
On April 19, 2013 The Wall Street Journal observed in an article called “Women in the Verge” that most famous artists are still men (as, I might add, are most scientists, CEOs, etc.). I am not calling for statistical balance just for the sake of it, but I would like to attract attention to the fact that the society still considers subjects and positions interesting to men to be more intellectual. On the other hand, those that interest women are often considered “soft”. I think that this bias in initial judgment stands in the way of women developing their voices and articulating their views on the same rigorous terms as men have done over the centuries.
Some weeks ago, at the Panel Review of PAFA, a discussion of work by a woman artist invited the observation that perhaps the work was “romantic” and thus somehow pre-modern. In thinking about this, I realized that the work had struck me not as stylistically but as emotionally romantic. To me, a degree of emotionality is inherent in the current female perspective. I would like to assert that this is neither “soft” nor “lesser than”, but a valid and relevant way of relating to the world. It is this stand that I call “decidedly and unapologetically feminist.”
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