The Feminist Art Movement of the 1970s-1980s

Gender Inequality and the Birth of Feminism in the United States

Since, what seems to be, the beginning of time, there has been inequality amongst women and men. According to a 2016 study done by the U.S. Department of Labor and Fortune, 62.8% of minimum wage workers are women, juxtaposing the 5.8% of women who make up Fortune 500 CEOs (inequality.org). Statistics, like the previous, only work to paint a picture of the true gender inequality that exists in our world today. While gender inequality is usually seen as more prominent in the work world, these inequalities are seen in many more areas. One of these areas where gender inequality has been ever so present is within the creative world. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there are fewer numbers of successful painters, writers, musicians, or actors. Rather, this means that there has been a notorious lack of representation of the woman's experience, prominence of unequal viewpoints between the genders in famous art pieces, and an unequal acceptance of artistic expressions that represent women. 

Getting fed up with the lack of proper representation of women in society during the 1970s and 1980s, the Feminist Art Movement was birthed. The Feminist Art Movement of the 1970s, within the second wave of feminism, "was a major watershed in women's history and the history of art" and "the personal is political" was its slogan (Garrand 263). Led by first-generation feminists like Judy Chicago, Judith Bernstein, and Rachel Rosenthal, the Feminist Art Movement worked to represent a woman’s experience through their respective artistic fields. Gaining traction on both coasts, the movement found its home base in New York City and Los Angeles. With hopes that their message would be heard throughout the whole nation, the Feminist Art Movement and their main advocates published countless journals, newsletters, and other literary mediums to increase their presence in the south and midwest. 

As the movement gained more and more traction, female artists started to grow more and more fed up with the lack of representation of women in museums and galleries. Acting as one of the main statements of the movement, the 1970 Art Workers’ Coalition’s Statement of Demands was published. Alongside calls for free admission, better representation of ethnic minorities, late openings, and an agreement that galleries would not exhibit an artwork without the artist's consent, the AWC demanded that museums “encourage female artists to overcome centuries of damage done to the image of the female as an artist by establishing an equal representation of the sexes in exhibitions, museum purchases and on selection committees” (Harrison p.901). 

Using statements of demands like the AWC Statement of Demands, the Feminist Art Movement quickly went to work. Along with advocating for the representation of female artists in exhibitions and galleries, the movement worked to create art that better represented a woman’s experience of the world. Tackling everything from the social construct of a “woman’s place in the world,” a woman’s inherent right to make decisions over her own body and the overall discrimination against women, the artists of the movement made political statements with their pieces. Working to make the movement accessible to all, the leaders of the movement aimed to include and uplift artists of many different art forms like music, film, and literature. 

Examples of Art from the Feminist Art Movement

Three Weeks in May: Speaking Out on Rape, A Political Art Piece by Suzanne Lacy 1977 (suzannelacy.com)

Performed over the course of three weeks in May of 1977, political activist and artist Suzanne Lacy used her performative art background to contribute to the Feminist Art Movement. Three Weeks in May hoped to make a political statement about the prominence of rapes in Los Angeles in the 1970s, as well as the lack of justice for the victims of these rapes. Broken into three separate “performances,” which all took place during the three weeks, Lacy set up a large map of the Los Angeles area. Each day, the artist would go to the Los Angeles police department and obtained confidential rape reports from the previous day. She then would place a large red stamp that read “rape” over the area in which the rapes from the previous day would take place.  Next, she and her fellow Los Angeles artists would take to the L.A. streets to draw on the sidewalks near the areas where the women were raped. The third portion of Lacy’s artistic protest was her performance art piece titled She Who Would Fly. This piece highlighted four Los Angeles women’s stories of their rapes. Sitting above a white-winged lamb carcass, naked women covered one another with the same red greasepaint that Lacy used to stamp the areas of the women’s rapes on the map. Three Weeks in May captured the attention of newspapers and television stations all over the country. 

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago (1974-1979) (brooklynmuseum.org)

Los Angeles-based artist Judy Chicago has been revered as one of the most influential artists of the Feminist Art Movement. Standing as one of the largest advocates for equal representation of women in art, Chicago’s pieces seem to be the most commonly associated works with the movement. Her 1974-1979 art piece The Dinner Party comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table with a total of thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history. The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices and utensils, and china-painted porcelain plates with raised central motifs that are based on vulvar and butterfly forms and rendered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honored. The names of another 999 women are inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the triangular table. This permanent installation is enhanced by rotating Herstory Gallery exhibitions relating to the 1,038 women honored at the table.

Guerilla Girls (1980s) (Tate)

As the Feminist Art Movement moved into the 1980s, there was a shift away from physical art pieces. Taking to the streets to spread awareness of the movement, the Guerilla Girls rose to fame in New York City. The group formed in New York City in 1985 with the mission of bringing gender and racial inequality into focus within the greater arts community. The group employs culture jamming in the form of posters, books, billboards, and public appearances to expose discrimination and corruption. To remain anonymous, members don gorilla masks and use pseudonyms that refer to deceased female artists. 

A Letter to the Movement

You stand for women like me. 

You fought for women like me.

I am a woman.

I am creative. 

I deserve to be heard. 

The stories of women, like myself, deserve to be heard. 

The conversation about a woman’s true place in the world deserves to be had. 

A woman should not fear walking down a street at night all alone.

A woman should not be paid less for the same work. 

You laid down the foundation for a greater conversation to be had.

Women are powerful.

Women are creative.

Women are divine. 

Works Cited

Brooklyn Museum. “The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago.” Brooklyn Museum. Accessed March 16, 2021. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/dinner_party.

Garrand, Mary D. The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact. New York, UNITED STATES: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, n.d.

Harrison, Charles. Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Edited by Paul Wood and Jason Gaiger. Oxford University Press USA- OSO, n.d.

inequality.org. “U.S. Men and Women as a Share of Minimum Wage Workers and Fortune 500 CEOs.” Statistic. inequality.org: U.S. Department of Labor and Fortune. Accessed March 15, 2021. https://inequality.org/facts/gender-inequality/.

Lacy, Suzanne. “Three Weeks in May (1977).” SUZANNE LACY. Accessed March 16, 2021. https://www.suzannelacy.com/three-weeks-in-may.

Tate. “Guerrilla Girls.” Art Blog. Tate. Accessed March 16, 2021. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/guerrilla-girls-6858.