The third part of this lesson about defining feminist art looks at how the personal and political are discussed in relation to feminist art practices.
What is the relationship between the personal and political in feminist art? How does the important feminist slogan, ‘the personal is political’, manifest itself in feminist art practices?
How we understand the relationships between art and politics will determine how we see the personal as political in feminist art practices.
If you understand art as separate from politics, as a universal “truth” in which the sex of the artist plays no part, then you may feel that some “cultural politics” (usually around selection of artists for exhibitions) is the only area in which discrimination against women artists may occur and everything else is a question of talent.
If you understand all art as political, both in how art is produced, what art engages with, where it is shown, who has access to it, and how art as a symbolic and economic system plays a major role in determining cultural and social existence, then you will have a much more engaged idea about the relationships between art and politics. The presence or invisibility of women artists and the excessive attention or total lack of attention paid to their works are the result of the social and economic systems in play in contemporary society. What happens to women artists’ works and women artists’ reputations is a consequence of this system “at work” as it selects, promotes and maintains a particular set of social and political values. These values may not be your values but it is possible (in analysing them) to identify where they come from and how they support particular social/ political groups or class interests in society. The intersections between class/race/sex (or gender)/sexual preference/ethnicity/religion all play a part in this political definition of art.
What is the “personal” – in the slogan “the personal is political”?
The personal here is not identical to any kind of celebration of the subjectivity of the artist (even a woman artist) in terms of what might be distinctive or different about his/her art practice. Personal experiences – in this slogan – are the grounding for political action but only because an individual’s personal experiences are shared with others and can provide the basis on which collective political action may be organised.
This view of the value of personal experience in determining political action was the purpose behind women sharing their experiences of social, political and cultural life in consciousness-raising groups and through these discussions gaining awareness of where and how to act, socially and politically, to change the situation of women.
What is the “political”, if it is a counterpoint to the “personal”
Feminism has contributed to redefining politics in several ways. First, many early feminist protests and demands formulated at the many Women’s Liberation conferences redefined the sphere of “politics”, bringing many matters typically considered “private” into the “public” sphere. Feminist politics redefined the relationships between public and private in its approach to fulfillment of women’s civic and social rights. Feminist models based on rights and responsibilities demonstrated how matters once considered “private” – family life, domestic arrangements, care of children – required political solutions and changes in civil society, the law, social policy and a change in the distribution of public funds. Examples of how feminism changed political agendas include prioritising equal pay for equal work, establishing measures to tackle sexual harassment at work, ending discrimination against pregnant women workers, making adequate childcare provision for mothers and fathers to go to work, ending “rape” in marriage and providing refuges for women fleeing domestic violence.
Second, feminist methods of campaigning and public protest were different from many Union-based methods of political and social protest or party rallies where members determined and voted for political action. In feminist politics, while there are membership organisations, being a member of a political group does not determine which feminism one follows. Feminist protests instead have successfully drawn support from many different constituencies in society, disrupting old ideas of who is a political subject as a party member, a trade unionist or working in one trade or industry. This is why women’s campaigns on particular issues were not organised through membership of any single party or Union (traditional methods of political campaigning). Feminism has been a civil rights-based movement as much as it has been a set of theories, an approach to social and cultural politics and a point of identification for women protesting injustices in their lives.
‘Well, is the Personal Political?’
“Yes, if it is understood to be so, and if one brings the consciousness of a larger collective struggle to bear on questions of personal life, in the sense of regarding the two spehere as both dialectically opposed and unitary.
“No, if attention is narrowed down to the privatized tinkering with one’s solely private life, divorced from any collective effort or public act, and simples goes on to name this personal concentration as political. For art, this can mean doing work that looks like art has always looked, challenging little, but about which one claims that it is political just because it was done by a woman.
“Yes, if one exposes to view the socially constrained elements with the supposed realm of freedom of action – namely, “the personal”.
“No, if one insists on prtection one’s right to autonomy and regards the triumph of personal politics as a publicly emancipatory act.”
Martha Rosler in a statement ‘Well, is the Personal Political?’ (1980) for the conference ‘Questions on Women’s Art’ ICA, London, 15-16 Nov 1980. Reproduced in Hilary Robinson Feminism-Art-Theory: An Anthology, 1968-2014 (2015) p.69
The politics of representation
The politics of representation has been a major theme in feminist theory, politics and art.
One of the central achievements of feminist theory since the 1970s has been a re-examination of the politics of representation as a means to question how images of women are produced and reproduced, their use and exchange in our society and a critique of the value systems which result from this.
This phrase, the politics of representation, needs to be explained.
It might seem self-evident but it is not.
It brings together two ideas:
First, a demand to be represented, to have visibility as a political subject, is closely related to a basic demand for political representation: the right to vote.
So, the politics of representation is about how to create visible political subjects in and through representations as much as it is about analysing them. Representations produce knowledge about political subjects. Representations produce ideas about people. Representations are always constructed and at the same time constructions of power: the ability to name/create a reality is a form of power.
Political regimes of different types have regularly installed dominant forms of representations to secure their power: whether it is the representation of a leader or an ideal supporter or a stereotype of their political opponents/enemy of the people. Grassroots movements and oppositional groups also focus on political representations to make themselves visible: over time, these too acquire identity and recognition.
Second, representations have a politics in terms of their use and their exchange value. How representations are produced affect how people are seen and how their different subjectivities are not only recognised but understood.
The struggle for power is as much about images as words, actions and deeds. Together these forms express ideologies (values, beliefs, ideas) in/through representations.
The circulation of images (like “goods” circulating in an economy), in terms of their repetition or their rarity, their absence or presence in our visual world also affects how we might see ourselves within our immediate culture and in the world at large.
The circulation of representations and their relative presence or absence in a culture is also controlled by different interest groups and their presence/absence is the result of a power struggle – in the sense of decisions made to promote certain points of view.
The politics of representation is an area of enquiry, not a series of value judgements about representations. Representations can easily be mis-representations (negative, disturbing, false, stereotyped, damaging) as much as they can be positive, life-affirming and exemplary. The politics of representation studies both positive and negative images and how these judgements are produced between the work and its audiences. The politics of representation is important because it is about ideas, values and beliefs and examining these (often referred to as ideologies) is a means of changing or challenging consciousness.
Another key distinction in the politics of representation concerns whether representation is a proxy or a portrait. Does a representation speak for a subject (i.e. represent someone in someone else’s words/ideas/images) or does it portray/create a representation of a subject (i.e. become an image/ideal/words about someone which the subject themselves owns/recognises/accepts)? This distinction is about whether a representation is motivated by a politics of representing someone else’s position for them (speaking on their behalf or “for” them) or whether a representation is produced by a speaking political subject from a recognised constituency.
Read and watch the resources in the sidebar to expand your consideration of these ideas about the politics of representation and the personal as political.
Move on to Lesson 4
Carol Hannish ‘The Personal is Political’ (1969) first published in Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation (1970). This article discusses the difference between “therapy” and “politics” in women’s consciousness-raising groups and how ‘personal problems are political problems’, solved by collective political action, not personal solutions.
Read Rahila Gupta on ‘The personal is political: the journey of a feminist slogan‘ (Open Democracy Net – for 50:50 inclusive democracy – posted, 13 April 2015)
The Personal is Political, Revisited – Exquisite Acts & Everyday Rebellions from Audrey Chan on Vimeo.
“The Personal is Political, Revisited”
Panel discussion with Andrea Bowers, Dorit Cypis, Martha Rosler, and Audrey Chan (moderator) Exquisite Acts & Everyday Rebellions: CalArts Feminist Art Symposium California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California
March 10, 2007
Read: Irina Aristarkhova and Faith Wilding
Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies Vol. 5 , No.2 (July 2009)
ISSN: 1557-2935 (online)
Joan D. Mandle ‘How Political is the Personal?: Identity Politics, Feminism and Social Change’ on the Women’s Studies List. In this article, Mandle characterises the problem that identity politics creates for any proper consideration of the personal as political in competing theories (dominant in the late 1990s) where women’s difference is emphasised or women’s victimhood.
Or read Yoshiko Shimada’s reflections on her own position on the personal as political as the basis for her art and activism in extracts from her catalogue Art-Activism (Ota Fine Arts, 1998)
