Yves Saint Laurent Exhibit: Women's Bodies in Fashion

This past weekend I went to the Yves Saint-Laurent exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, (http://www.denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/yves-saint-laurent-retrospective). The exhibit had dozens of original Yves Saint Laurent designs and many interactive video’s and recorded speeches by Saint Laurent himself, who died in 2008. I was fascinated by Saint Laurent’s unique take on the female body within the world of fashion. Saint Laurent insisted on designing his clothes on an actual female body, rather than adhering to an unrealistic mannequin, so that his clothes fit to flatter a real woman, rather than a mold of unrealistic proportions. Saint Laurent often said that the most beautiful thing in the world is the naked body, and was known for his controversial use of lace and see-through fabric in the late 1960’s.

It seemed that Yves Saint Laurent was able to more accurately design for a female’s comfort, style and individual sexuality of the woman wearing the clothes, rather than the sexuality imposed upon a woman’s body by men. Many of the designs were rather unflattering on the mannequins, but once on a woman’s body in photographs and magazine spreads, the garments came alive, and many famous women of the last fifty years raved about the comfort and femininity of Yves Saint Laurent’s style.

He is also known for introducing the first ready to wear clothing line; a haute couture fashion line that was affordable for the everyday woman. Yves Saint Laurent is known for introducing the safari jacket, but particularly the smoking jacket for women. He stylized the suit and man’s tuxedo for a woman who is strong, confident, and beautiful. This exhibit was really interesting because it brought the issue of women’s body and who “owns” them into the forefront in a completely different way than I’d ever considered it before. This exhibit is incredible, I highly recommend it whether you enjoy fashion or not!

denial of constitutional right to vote

While checking my facebook feed, I saw a post from one of my professors from undergrad. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/27/491012/exclusive-florida-ineligible-to-vote/?mobile=nc here is the link for the article he posted.  While reading the article one of our class discussions very quickly came to mind.  When Maria asked us to think of a time that a right was taken away.  The article pointed out that many citizens in Florida may be denied their constitutional right to vote for their president.  The only refuge these people have for the time being is to respond to a letter mailed to them “within 30 days”.  Knowing that things get lost in the mail and how many things accidently can go unopened until the time is too late this seems crazy to me.  Perhaps the most outrageous part that the article brings to light is that “an excess of 20 percent of the voters flagged as “non-citizens” in Miami-Dade are, in fact, citizens.”  How can a state get its numbers so incredibly wrong? According to the article “Hispanic, democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted.”  Why do you think it is that Hispanic and democratic voters are more likely to be targeted than white people or republicans? Knowing there are so many errors in their lists I do not understand how things were ever allowed to get to this point.  I can only hope that the legal team in charge of fighting against this will prevail to prevent the injustice that could happen to many US citizens.  

Argentina Approves Transgender Rights

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/10/gender-identity-law-argentina_n_1505093.html

This happened about a week ago and I thought I would share it as the article connects to some of the issues surrounding transgender/transexual identity that were mentioned in class today!

Obama speaks to graduates at Barnard

My mom was watching MSNBC, like she does many mornings. This particular
morning I tuned in with her and we heard President Obama give a speech to
Barnard College in NYC.

http://barnard.edu/headlines/president-barack-obama-addresses-barnard-class-
2012

If you want to hear his whole commencement speech it is currently the
first video on the link above. As Barnard College is an all girls’ school, it was very
interesting to hear the president speak to the graduates. The president mentioned
that there was much in common with the graduates that sit before him as when he
graduated in 1983, as at that time the country was recovering from an economic
recession as well. He added that as women graduating, there is even more that
needs to be dealt with like “whether you will be able to earn equal pay for equal
work… whether you will be able to fully control decisions about your own health
and while opportunities have grown exponentially for women over the past 30
years as young people as many ways you have it worse than we do.”

He continued on that people will try and convince you that “change is
impossible; that you cannot make a difference, that you won’t be able to close
that gap between life as it is and life as you want it to be… my job today is to tell
you don’t believe it because as tough as things have been I am convinced you are
tougher.” The part that caught my attention the most came slightly later in the
president’s speech. His statements made me think of one of our class discussions
with Maria about women going into office and having power not only for women
but also for the people of their countries. The president said, “after decades of slow
steady extraordinary progress, you are now poised to make this the century where
women shape not only their own destiny but the destiny of this nation and this
world.” He said that the women in front of him need to “Fight for a seat at the table.”
I find it interesting that he brought up our history in that there were no women
who signed key historical documents such as our constitution. He echoed a point
that was made in one of the imaginary letters that we read though that although a
woman may not have signed it “we can assume that there were founding mothers
whispering smarter things in the ears of the founding fathers.”

He continued on to encouraged women to stand up for their rights and what
they believe in. I feel that the speech the president gave to this graduating class
sums up very well much of what we have discussed in class. His speech brings home
the idea that although we have come a long way, there is still more that can (and
needs to) be done but we must keep pushing forward and keep working.

The War on Women??

For weeks, if not months, there have been references in the media to a Republican “War on Women” that is manifesting itself in legislation that seeks to limit access to contraception and legal abortions. Additionally, there’s been a right v. left, liberal v. conservative kerfuffle surrounding comments made about whether Ann Romney is a working woman with a ‘real job’ or simply a stay-at-home-mom, as well as the recent Time magazine article that asked women if they were “Mom Enough” to subscribe to attachment parenting.

 From my relatively liberal, feminist viewpoint, concerns over access to reproductive health are valid and I, too, fear what will/might/could happen if contraception and abortion become increasingly inaccessible. Yet, I know that for everyone who shares my opinion, there are others who find my interpretation of feminism distasteful. Last semester, I researched Concerned Women for America, which is a conservative women’s organization with membership larger than NOW (National Organization of Women). They too define themselves as feminists and as working for women’s issues, but this takes a very different form as they fight the conservative side of the War against Women.

I find this article interesting because it illustrates the simple fact that despite having certain biological similarities, women cannot be addressed as an ideologically-unified block. (As a caveat, I’m posting this article not because I subscribe to any of its viewpoints, but because I think it’s important to understand the arguments made by those on the other side of any argument).

Women's art worth less?

Art and women have always gone together. I remember as a child walking aimlessly through the St. Louis Art Museum. Seeing those renaissance portraits of women moved me. Those stoic and scantily, clad women introduced me to the true form of beauty, away from the hypercritical eye of today's advertisers. It is interesting then, that women have seemed to always have a place in art on the canvas, but not necessarily in front of it.

This article in the economist highlights the vast differences between the price of art by male artists and by female artists. The differences are shocking. If you look at the bottom of the article, there is a chart that maps out the top ten highest paid artists for female and males. The most a female artist earned from a painting is around 10 million, and a male in comparison 8 times that. This correlates with the video we watched last class, but with a twist. This is a subjective worth, so why do people think that a piece of art done by a female is worth less than a piece of art done by a male?

The article highlights that there is change underfoot. Female artists are now included in exhibits and some avid collectors are now female and interested in the female perspective. But does this really indicate permanent change? Or does it indicative of the present and future struggles of women in an industry that has been dominated by men?

Gender in the Workplace

This New York Times article delves a little into some of the changing gender patterns in the American workforce, highlighting the growing population of males entering into previously female-dominated positions. The NYT conducted an analysis of census data from 2000 to 2010 that shows "occupations that are more than 70 percent female accounted for almost a third of all job growth for men, double the share of the previous decade." I felt this article shows an interesting perspective, particularly in addressing the "male" aspects of gender relations like many of us voiced in class as being a piece that often gets left out of discussions about gender in general.

However, I think the article also cheapens female-oriented work in the way in which it gets compared with male jobs ("prestigious" for male positions vs. "occupations that their fathers might never have considered" for female positions but no mention of 'prestige' or anything of the sort for those). I don't know exactly how to articulate it, but I feel there is a definite notion that they are creating more of a hierarchy of importance with their word choices, even if unintentionally.. almost as if women are now vying for male jobs while men are just settling for female jobs, if that makes sense.

I think it's interesting the connection this article makes to "women's jobs" being, in the long-run, more stable and capable of growth both professionally and monetarily yet today's women are competing for the "prestigious, high-wage professions dominated by men." I feel like this connects to the ideas Professor Suarez-Toro presented in class (and the documentary she showed) about what is and is not considered 'valuable' or "productive" in terms of the work women do, be it in the domestic realm or elsewhere. It seems like this article is showing the importance of and perhaps commending the strategic moves made by women to provide long-term support for their families, yet somehow works to challenge their motives and capabilities at the same time when talking about a male assuming such roles.

Do you know of any peers that you feel have broken the normative gender roles in their professional fields? If so, what kind of backlash or support have they felt? And what might that say about inside/outside the box social constructs? How do you think NYT could have changed their story to better demonstrate the "value" or "productiveness" of the positions historically deemed female-specific? Or, do you think they do a good job and I am just being too critical?