Gender Roles Subject and Power: Sheree Cannon

Women have generally always been inferior to men. There has been so many arguments to support the make of a women being to submit to man. Women are seen to be weaker and less intelligent and from those ideas it gave women a very limited number of roles to play during the middle ages. Men dominated everything about how a woman’s life would ultimately end up. Women were deprived of their independence because a woman was either taken care of her father or later her husband. However, if a woman is seen to be inferior to men how was a women who no longer had a father or husband able to thrive in life. During the Middle Ages women were actually given opportunity for achieving goals and creating a life style with restrictions of course. Yes, women were able to create art but many paintings are nameless because they were not aloud to mark they’re writing, they could own land. The church plaid a huge role on the middle ages and women became the center of the development. While women still were not able to read nuns had special privilege to books and that means special privilege to books. Eventually the nuns began to teach others and they were the ones that God would use to transfer messages. This is so significant because women were not able to read yet the selected head nun was not only able to read but she was a women given the privilege to extend her knowledge onto other women.  In this painting you can see the similarities this has to a year book. The most astonishing thing here is that women dominate this art piece. 

Herrard of Landsberg, Hortus Deliciarum, 114

Now taking a step forward into the the renaissance period. During this time I feel like women were taking a stand against men and and the male gaze. Women had something to prove and a lot of the art was definitely encouraging that move. Whitney Chadwick explains the new style of painting directly focusing on men and basically explaining how they made it unable for women to be able to paint and made blamed it on women's inability to comprehend. There fore continuing from the middle ages men are still disregarding women intelligence. From this women began stepping out making it socially acceptable for there to be exceptional women artists. Sofonisba Anguissolla was one of the first women artists to set the standard for women artists. She stepped out of the norm of painting women as objects for men, she instead gave women another layer. Meaning beyond the beautiful dresses and jewelry, women were more than just some controllable object for men. She gave women purpose in her paintings. In Sofonisbas Self- Portrait she paints herself in modest clothing while playing a piano! That is a big deal. It takes away of her being just a beautiful women in a portrait but now she is a beautiful women playing the piano. 

Sofonisba Anguissolla, Self-Portrait 1556

Moving forward to the 19th century painting began to take over , putting painting in the back burner because of how easy and more convenient. During the 1th Century women were able to make an impact because they were using photography as a different way of expressing their art. Photography was not only a male dominant thing because at this point women have and are still developing in this aspect. Photography allows a moment to be captured and remembered by anyone. 

Work Cited

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Fifth ed. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Print.

Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.