Post 2: Gender Roles, Subject and Power

Since the beginning of time woman of all class have been pushed into tight corners. They were not allowed freedom and had to live their lives under the control and command of a man, usually their husband or father. In the Middle Ages, women were strictly expected to serve men. They were expected to take care of the children, cook dinner, take care of the household activities and occasionally help their fathers or husbands when necessary. This gender role was the same for every woman regardless of their social class. The poor women helped with the yearly harvest and the richer helped run the family business. Women were objects to look at. They were not to speak or act unless spoken to. They were to just sit there and look pretty for potential husbands. The only escape from this arrangement was to “take the veil” and become a nun (Bovey). In today’s society, that does not seem like a much better alternative, at that time it was the best way to have your own freedom: freedom from a man that is not God. Alixe Bovey, of the British Library, rightfully portrays the roles of women at that time. She argues “Almost all female orders required women to live behind the walls of a monastery or within an individual cell, living a life of contemplation, prayer, and work. Though the appeal of this way of life might be difficult to grasp today, for a medieval woman, one of its attractions must have been freed from the dangers of childbearing.” Nuns also had a better position of power than most women, especially those of the lower class and were able to get an education. As Bovey puts it, some churches allowed women to have the responsibility as abbesses, which in some communities had seniority over monks (Bovey). At this time, women’s options were limited. Unless you were a ruling queen, your two options were to marry or become a nun. Opportunities were even more limited for women artists.

Women were predestined with their future. From the second they took their first breath, it was already pretty much known by their families what the future life of this woman would entail. As Chadwick explained, "the confusion of sovereignty with personal property contributed to the emergence of a number of powerful upper-class women at a time when most other women were restricted to the home and economically dependent on fathers, husbands, brothers, or sovereigns" (Chadwick 44). During the Middle Ages, the only acceptable form of art that could be created by women were embroidery or tapestry art. Hildegard of Bingen was one of the few women who were able to create their art in an open space, but even these women who had the freedom to do so often sometimes felt as if they shouldn’t or couldn’t. In 1141, Hildegard of Bingen began creating images that had followed her since her youth, her most famous piece being Scivias, created 1142-52.

Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, 1142-52

As time progressed, so did women’s roles, responsibilities, and achievements. Advances in education and technology created a bridge for women who had the passion to be artists. Leading into the Renaissance, women were still expected to bear children and tend to their duties as wives, but they also began seeking freedom to create their art, often moving to places where their art would be accepted, and communities would allow them to grow. Women began painting portraits with symbols of wealth, most often a book in the background instead of a shiny beautiful dress. Women began seeking oasis and discovering communities where they could create. A prime example of this is the city of Bologna. Many known artists of this time studied and created in Bologna. Scultori, De Vigri, Siriani, Fontana, and De’ Rossi were all relatively famous for their work and all of these women worked hard to create a name for themselves. At the time, the ability to create art only came from the privilege of having a progressive man in your life that allowed you to create and provide you with resources. Often times, women studied under their fathers or married other artists and this trait continued well through the Renaissance. It was “one of the few ways a woman could work as an artist” (Guerrilla Girls 29). Thanks to this, women were often creating similar works to their father or other men from a different perspective. Some well-known examples include Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi’s depictions of Judith and her Maidservant.

 During the 19^th century, women were still pushed into corners of households. Roles were significant for women, but only if those roles related anything to cooking, cleaning, raising a child, or looking pretty for your husband. Because of this, artists were painting "more of a relationship between the painter's daily life and his or her studio life; this aspect of impressionism deserves more study for it profoundly shaped women's relationship to the movement" (Chadwick 232). The ability to create what they were living in real time led to the discovery of masterpieces today that opened a new view into the lives artists lived at that time. Then, women were faced with multiple challenges throughout their lives and they either painted those challenges as a form of expression or found new alternatives like leaving. Multiple women had the power to break away from the household constraint, whether they were studying under their fathers or husbands in the atelier (which sometimes led to their works being mistaken for their fathers or husbands), or choosing to abandon family life completely–not marrying and deciding to focus on their career, others running off with their children to work, leaving the husband behind alongside the assigned wife duties. These artists held on to the little bit of freedom they had and took advantage of it.

The oppression of women has since continued to this day, but we continue to rise against it. Artists all around the world continue to create and women are continuing to fight back the patriarchal structure that defines us as objects. With movements like the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, the #MeToo Movement, and many others, we continue to fight against this oppression. Artists are creating and achieving their hard-earned fame, as well as recognition, but the fight for our equal, well-deserved rights is not over.
Work Cited

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Print.

The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York:

Penguin, 1998. Print.