what lovely life advice posted on january the first of 2019 from a twitter user with a yuri on ice handle and the name ‘massive 600 meter dong hours’ and an icon that’s just a picture of a moray eel
Cantilever. Watercolour on Hahnemuhle paper. 12″x12″. 2016. Available through Gauntlet Gallery - info@gauntletgallery.com
A bit about this painting: First of all, it is a self portrait. Yes, that is my body which is on display. I’ve seen some body shaming & slut shaming recently in regards to women posting their own photos of themselves. I’ve seen the argument that a woman should be using her mind, her strength, her talent, but not her body or sexuality, in order to be successful. Well, this is all of that on display here. I use every part of me to create my work. Tell me that I should be ashamed of myself and I will tell you that you need to take a good long look at why you feel the need to belittle me or any other woman.
Our society has such an incredible hunger to control and dis-empower women, no matter what we do. Our culture has de-humanized us to the point that we are not allowed to make decisions about our own bodies, let alone be anything more than sexual objects. God forbid we breastfeed a child, or forget to smile, in public. God forbid we love ourselves enough, and are brave enough, to want to show the world how beautiful we are.
It is such a slippery slope when you allow yourself to believe that a woman is worth less, and deserving of less, because she shows her body. It feeds into much more serious issues of rape culture and the disenfranchisement of sex workers. We need to be criticizing the culture that would have us believe that a woman “deserved it” because she wasn’t wearing enough clothing. We need to be criticizing a culture where a woman is afraid to report her own rape because she is even more afraid of the police and the public shame, not to mention the fact that her life may be in danger if she happens to live in a culture of honour killings. We need to look at why we think a man’s life will be ruined if he is charged with rape, with little thought for the impact he has already had on his victim’s life (perhaps it is because she is no longer pure and thus has no value?). This kind of culture leads to women internalizing so much of it that we blame ourselves because we “must have done something to deserve it”. This kind of culture is an oppression so deep that we no longer see the humanity in each other or ourselves.
We need to think about who benefits from our lack of agency and power, because it is surely not women.
