MOURNING WOMEN, HEADLESS MONSTERS, AND PASSIVE GODDESSES:
EXAMINING THE INCLUSION OF FEMALES IN UNIVERSITY ART
CURRICULUM
Denise Michelle Cornish
B.A., California State University, Sacramento, 2002
THESIS
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
EDUCATION
(Behavioral Sciences-Gender Equity)
at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
FALL
2010
MOURNING WOMEN, HEADLESS MONSTERS, AND PASSIVE GODDESSES:
EXAMINING THE INCLUSION OF FEMALES IN UNIVERSITY ART
CURRICULUM
A Thesis
by
Denise Michelle Cornish
Approved by:
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Sherrie Carinci, Ed.D.
__________________________________, Second Reader
Jana Noel, Ph.D.
____________________________
Date
ii
Student: Denise Michelle Cornish
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the
University format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library
and credit is to be awarded for the thesis.
Robert Pritchard, Ph.D., Department Chair
Department of Teacher Education
iii
Date
Abstract
of
MOURNING WOMEN, HEADLESS MONSTERS, AND PASSIVE GODDESSES:
EXAMINING THE INCLUSION OF FEMALES IN UNIVERSITY ART
CURRICULUM
by
Denise Michelle Cornish
Statement of Problem
In many art history textbooks, the history of women artists is severely limited
(Clark & Folgo, 2006). Although art history textbooks vary, biasness can be found
(Elkins, 2001). Textbooks are often conservative and usually cover the commonly
known aspects of the culture and art which has its focus on men. Since learning takes
place through observation, reinforcement, and regulation (Dutton, 2007), students
learn gender roles through experience with the environment. The way in which
students are treated in the classroom as well as the images they see in textbooks can
influence the social role they adopt (Tsai, Louie, Chen, & Uchida, 2007). The more
students see a repeated image the more likely it will be adopted. Images become part
of the viewer, for the body and brain responds involuntary and unconsciously (Picard
et al., 2004). Therefore, without critical art analysis unconscious adoptions of
iv
unhealthy images of self or others may occur. Through gender equitable curricula,
students can learn to decipher ideologies and chose to adopt meanings that add to their
awareness of others as well their own agency, authority, critical thinking, and mastery.
Sources of Data
The literature of feminist art pedagogy and theory were reviewed for this study.
In addition, literature in the fields of neurology, affective science, and emotion
socialization were consulted. However, such an array of study is not uncommon in
feminist art scholarship (Pajaczowska, 2001). Therefore, the literature reviewed was
instrumental to the topics relevant for this study: the history of gendered art education,
role representation in art and art history texts, the social function of art label
dichotomy, and the importance of gender inclusion in art curricula.
Conclusions Reached
College art history curricula are a reflection of the value system and power
dynamics within the greater society. Although art history curricula have gained
advances since the 1970s, there is still much left to desire. Indeed, gender equitable
curricula will not just happen on its own, agents of change are needed.
, Committee Chair
Sherrie Carinci, Ed.D.
Date
v
DEDICATION
This study is dedicated to all who support gender equitable education as well
as those who study art history.
vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to my parents Patricia and Dennis
Cornish, who because of their compassion and support made completing the graduate
program much easier. I would also like to acknowledge my firm belief that with social
support people can act with agency. Case in point, my paternal great grandmother, a
suffragist, State legislator, founding member of Denver’s Children’s Hospital, and
Board of Education member, Dr. Minnie C. T. Love, whose mother Elizabeth L.
Roosevelt raised daughters who were self sufficient and left loving legacies.
I would also like to show my appreciation to one of my first graduate
professors, Dr. Jana Noel, where I learned of critical pedagogy, which would then
influence the direction of my study. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Alyson
Buckman for introducing me to feminist and cultural theories in literature and popular
culture, as well as to the writings of Octavia Butler and Louis Althusser. And of
course, I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to Dr. Sherrie Carinci, whom I met
as an undergraduate in my first gender equity course where the Guerilla Girls forever
changed my ideas about art. And now as my thesis advisor, Dr. Carinci has uplifted
and guided me throughout the process—thank you.
Finally, I would like to thank my good friend Angelina Pacheco Romero
through whose prayers I know have helped me through the graduate program; which
leads me to acknowledge my ultimate supporter Jesus Christ for making all of this
possible.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Dedication.................................................................................................................... vi
Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... vii
List of Tables ............................................................................................................... xi
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
Statement of Problem ....................................................................................... 1
Purpose of the Study ......................................................................................... 1
Significance of the Study.................................................................................. 3
Methodology..................................................................................................... 4
Limitations of the Study ................................................................................... 5
Theoretical Framework .................................................................................... 6
Definition of Terms .......................................................................................... 8
Organization of the Study ............................................................................... 21
2. REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE ......................................................... 22
Gendered Art Education ................................................................................. 22
First Stage: Medieval Artisans ....................................................................... 24
Second Stage: Renaissance Artists ................................................................. 26
Third Stage: Academy Members .................................................................... 28
Fourth Stage: Life Classes .............................................................................. 35
Gendered Art Education for School Age Children ......................................... 37
Feminist Response to Gendered Art Education .............................................. 40
Textbook Analysis .......................................................................................... 42
Role Representation in Art and Art History Texts ......................................... 46
Woman as Sex Symbol ................................................................................... 48
viii
Woman as Monster ......................................................................................... 49
Woman as Social Construct............................................................................ 50
Woman as Invisible ........................................................................................ 51
Woman as Visible........................................................................................... 52
Woman as Provider ........................................................................................ 53
Woman as Artist ............................................................................................. 54
Woman as Art Historian ................................................................................. 55
Woman as Victim ........................................................................................... 57
Woman as Accommodator ............................................................................. 58
The Dichotomy in Art Labels ......................................................................... 59
Text Devotion According to Gender .............................................................. 61
The Importance of Gender Inclusion .............................................................. 63
General Exclusion .......................................................................................... 63
Gender Socialization Differences ................................................................... 64
Gender Gap Documentation ........................................................................... 66
Gender Inclusion ............................................................................................ 67
Skills of Independence, Autonomy, Expertise, and Ingenuity ....................... 67
Skill of Responsible Citizenship .................................................................... 68
Skill of Leadership ......................................................................................... 68
Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 70
3. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................... 72
Content Analysis ............................................................................................ 72
Research Design, Procedure, and Analysis .................................................... 74
Course Textbook ............................................................................................ 74
Course Syllabi ................................................................................................ 78
Catalog Course Descriptions .......................................................................... 79
Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 80
ix
4. FINDINGS ........................................................................................................... 81
Quantitative Content Analysis ........................................................................ 82
Course Textbook ............................................................................................ 82
Course Syllabi .............................................................................................. 105
Catalog Course Descriptions ........................................................................ 105
Conclusion .................................................................................................... 106
5. DISCUSSION, LIMITATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 108
Discussion..................................................................................................... 108
Course Textbook .......................................................................................... 108
Course Syllabi .............................................................................................. 137
Catalog Course Description .......................................................................... 137
Limitations .................................................................................................... 138
Recommendations ........................................................................................ 138
Conclusion .................................................................................................... 140
References ................................................................................................................ 142
x
LIST OF TABLES
Page
1.
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook A-1: Percent of
Images in Text According to Gender ........................................................ 82
2.
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook A-2: Number of
Image “Roles” in Text According to Gender ............................................ 83
3.
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook A-3: Percent of
Significant Image “Role” Clusters in Text According to Gender ............. 84
4.
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook A-4: Percent of
Significant Image “Role” Clusters in Text According to
Mixed Gender Group Images .................................................................... 85
5.
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook B-5: Percent of
Percent of Images in Text According to Gender ....................................... 86
6.
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook B-6: Number of
Image “Roles” in Text According to Gender ............................................ 87
7.
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook B-7: Percent of
Significant Image “Role” Clusters in Text According to Gender ............. 88
8.
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook B-8: Percent of
Significant Image “Role” Clusters in Text According to
Mixed Gender Group Images .................................................................... 89
9.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-9: Percent of
Line Counts According to Gender Image in Text ..................................... 90
10.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-10: Percent of
Line Counts According to Gender Image in Text ..................................... 91
11.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-11: Percent of
Attribute Cluster Topic – Clothing ............................................................ 92
12.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-12: Percent of
Attribute Cluster Topic – Clothing ............................................................ 93
xi
13.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-13: Percent of
Attribute Cluster Topic – Clothing ............................................................ 94
14.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-14: Percent of
Attribute Cluster Topic – Clothing ............................................................ 94
15.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-15: Theoretical
Foundation (Use of Artistic Genius) According to Gender ....................... 95
16.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-16: Theoretical
Foundation (Use of Artistic Genius) According to Gender ....................... 96
17.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-17: Theoretical
Foundation (Use of Linear Progression) According to Gender ................. 97
18.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-18: Theoretical
Foundation (Use of Linear Progression) According to Gender ................. 98
19.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-19: Theoretical
Foundation (Use of Complexity(C)/Partial Complexity(PC))
According to Gender ................................................................................. 99
20.
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-20: Theoretical
Foundation (Use of Complexity(C)/Partial Complexity(PC))
According to Gender ............................................................................... 100
21.
Gender, Agency, and Voice in Image/Text Representation in
Textbook A-21: Theoretical Foundation (Use of Active Roles)
According to Gender ............................................................................... 101
22.
Gender, Agency, and Voice in Image/Text Representation in
Textbook B-22: Theoretical Foundation (Use of Active Roles)
According to Gender ............................................................................... 102
23.
Gender and Violence in Textbook A-23: Percent of Theme of
Violence/Warfare in Textbook; Percent of Violence Against
Females in Text or Images ...................................................................... 103
24.
Gender and Violence in Textbook B-24: Percent of Theme of
Violence/Warfare in Textbook; Percent of Violence Against
Females in Text or Images ...................................................................... 104
xii
1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Statement of Problem
In one of my own college art history courses I read from the course text how
Greek female vase painters were excluded from the text because their art production
were inferior in comparison to the Greek male vase painters. In addition, in one of my
art history courses, I asked the art history professor (in response to a slide shown in
class) why was a female portrait bust displayed in a tablinum (a Roman room for
family records and busts of prominent ancestors) in which the professor responded
something to the effect “I have no idea” and we quickly moved on to the next slide.
Therefore, this study will examine the area of content covering Greek art in the text
used in the Western art survey course (pre-historic through Middle Ages) offered
through the California State University (CSU) system, the corresponding course
syllabi, and the course catalog descriptions for gender equitable representation and
visibility.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to examine through content analysis, a general
education art history survey course curriculum involving the analysis of the textbook,
course syllabi, and course catalog description which is offered at 20 of the 23 CSU
campuses. Although the survey course of Western art from the prehistoric to the
Middle Ages is offered at many of the CSU campuses, this study will only involve the
2
course curricula that were made available to this researcher. Therefore, this study’s
examination of the course curriculum (the textbook, syllabi, and catalog description)
will include the curricula from 10 of the CSU campuses. The overall purpose of this
study is to examine aspects of female representation, voice, and agency in the course
textbooks’ chapter on Greek art as well the corresponding course syllabi and catalog
description.
Studies have demonstrated that course textbooks influence what material is
covered in the classroom. Art textbooks vary, but biasness can often be found in the
textbooks (Elkins, 2001). Although it is usually conservative patriarchal corporations
that manage textbook production (Kincheloe, 2004), who are ever mindful of profits
and often only add women and minorities as sidebars to new additions of the text to
cut costs (Barton, 2001), it is the intention of this study to highlight any underlying
political curriculum that either represents hegemonic biasness or emancipation of the
oppressed in the representation of females as artists and the subjects of art.
The following questions from the study pertaining to gender equity in the
textbook were asked:

What gender role representations are found within the text?

Are the representations stereotypical or multidimensional?

What descriptors or labels are used in relation to females and males?

How much text is devoted to females compared to that of males?
3
Significance of the Study
Visual images can be extremely powerful (Tsai, Louie, Chen, & Uchida,
2007), and what we observe and experience socializes us (Dutton, 2007). Therefore,
the study of art and images is really the study of visual stories and themes of a
particular culture. Furthermore, studies that are concerned with female agency and
voice facilitate and reinforce agentic behaviors which give a sense that others care
while providing a counter to the negative effects of androcentricism. It is critical for
one’s mental health to be validated as well as to develop a mastery of one’s own
(Brown & Gilligan, 1992) and an awareness of others’ experiences (Maher &
Tetreault, 2001).
Unfortunately, females are often given the status as an “outsider” in textbooks
and course curriculum (Collins, 1986). The outsider will be given different if not
undesirable characteristics or labels to that of an insider. While the dominant culture
focuses on and gives positive attributes to the insider, the outsider becomes invisible
except in situations where they serve in a supportive role to an insider. An alertness to
and questioning of any entrenched patriarchal assumptions found in textbooks or in
our culture is healthy; consciousness leads to discernment (Zerbe Enns & Sinacore,
2005).
And although art is often laden with our society’s patriarchal values, norms,
and power dynamics (Chadwick, 2007), a critical analysis of such biased messages
can be an aid to understanding one’s own behavior and an ability to reject any
4
unhealthy or limiting definitions given to them by others. The adoption of such
definitions often results in internalized oppression and a false consciousness. It is
imperative to offer educational materials that promote healthy behavior and healthy
self-images for all students and the skills necessary to counter prejudice and sexism.
Therefore, the meaning of the study is to decipher what areas of a particular art
history textbook/syllabus/catalog description supports female agency, representation,
and voice, and which areas of the curriculum espouses gender stereotyping. This study
will contribute to the body of critical art analysis literature where such properties of
analysis can be transferred to other domains. Hence this study can be an addition to
the disturbance of the status quo and bring awareness to such issues as the
stereotypical treatment of the female artist and female representation in art thereby
empowering students.
Methodology
A quantitative examination utilizing content analysis was conducted on the
textbooks, including the corresponding course syllabi, and course catalog description
from a specific general education art history course. The content analysis approach
was used to systematically identify female representation and gender equity. The
coding of the textbooks identified agentic and stereotypical female expression in the
artworks and text for each course. Also included in the study was coding for the type
of male representation offered in the curriculum. After the texts were coded
separately; comparisons were made to each other, and the textbooks were then ranked
5
in order from the highest ranking which displayed the most gender equitable text and
artwork to the lower demonstration. Next, course syllabi and course catalog
descriptions were examined for any mention of gender inclusion in the context of the
course. Then, the three components of the study: textbook, syllabi, and catalog
description for each campus was holistically examined, compared, and ranked to
determine the kind of gender role representation (whether of agency, voice, or
stereotypical) offered/promoted at the CSU system.
Limitations of the Study
A limitation of the study was due to the relative small number of courses and
corresponding textbooks analyzed. Although the survey art history course is offered at
most of the CSU campuses, due to available funds for this study, only the curriculum
that was offered through convenience be it locality, online availability, or instructor/
art department cooperation via email or postal were included in this study. Therefore,
half of the CSU campuses that offered the survey course were used in this study.
However, for the specific course for this study’s examination, it was found that the
entire CSU system’s choice for the course textbook was by either one of two art
historian authors. Hence, creating a small sample size of textbooks analyzed. In order
to gain the broadest possible scope of gender equitable experience for such a course,
the samples were entirely random and based on the availability/response previously
mentioned, for all campuses with the equivalent course were contacted. Given that
both (all) the textbooks for the course were included in this study, and textbook choice
6
influences instruction/curriculum, the limitation of the small sample size of the course
syllabi and the course catalog descriptions will likely support generalization of the
results.
Since Western civilization was created on Roman foundations and they
adopted the Greeks as their great “authoritative” ancestors (Arendt, 1968), Greek art is
the focus of this study’s investigation. However, because the lack of surviving work
by female artists in antiquity this caused a limitation in the study. Although there is
evidence from the writings of Pliny in AD79 that female Greek artisans existed and
their names were recorded in his Historia Naturalis (Munsterberg, 1975), most
examples of their works (if not entirely) are lost, therefore, the extant study’s main
focus was on each text’s treatment of the artistic representation of the female.
Another possible limitation of the study could be found in the researcher’s own
subjectivity involving the design of the study and interpretation of the data (MayesElma, 2003). For objectivity, is always filtered through emotional responses to our
cultural conditioning based on our positionality (Maher & Tetrault, 2001). Therefore,
the researcher, consciously made use of mastery by incorporating subjective
emotional/cognitive perspective with theory and a systematic method of analysis to
provide a foundational base and outside guide for the study.
Theoretical Framework
A theoretical framework provides a basis or foundation for critical analyses in
research. It is a collection of interrelated positions or viewpoints that grant a
7
systematic approach in viewing and explaining a trend (Oliver, 2004). A theoretical
framework will help guide the research by considering certain questions, generating a
hypothesis, and strategies for change about a trend which is reflected by the vary
composite of viewpoints.
The theoretical framework designed for this study was feminist art scholarship,
which is a field of study that draws on diverse scholarship in methods often involving
but not limited to deconstruction, cultural studies theory, and psychoanalysis
(Pajaczkowska, 2001). The result of this interfusion of the distinct fields, theories, and
perspectives of feminist art scholarship provides a well-rounded approach for a critical
analysis of the art history survey textbooks in this study.
Since a focus for this study will examine the inclusion and exclusion of gender
in college art survey textbooks, a feminist approach for this study is appropriate in that
feminist theory explores power dynamics such as insider/inclusion and
outsider/exclusion themes. hooks (2000) describes feminism as “a movement to end
sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” (p. vii). It is not about man-hating; it is
about emancipation for all who are affected by oppression (Mayes-Elma, 2003).
Feminist theory is a complex and ever evolving course with diverse and
varying concepts, goals, and methods of resistance. According to Zerbe Enns &
Sinacore (2005), the key elements of feminism often include: knowers as fallible; truth
is socially constructed; question “fixed” truths; reveal how power is attained and
maintained; transform concepts of “normal” emotional and sexual expression; and
8
encourage activism directed toward diverse forms of injustice (p. 42). Therefore,
feminist consciousness does not adhere to a ‘one true consciousness’ that falsifies one
consciousness over another.
To demonstrate the parallel strands of feminism, artist Hannah Wilke provided
a warning about “the dangers of a prescriptive, limiting feminism:” “I made [this
poster], because I felt feminism could easily become fascistic if people believe that
feminism is only their kind of feminism, and not my kind of feminism, or her kind of
feminism, or his kind of feminism” (Kubitza, 1996, p. 171). Therefore it was an
intention of this study to include in the literature reviewed relevant examples of the
variorums of feminist scholarship: Postmodern feminisms, women of color feminisms,
lesbian feminisms, global feminisms, and third-wave feminisms.
Therefore, with the literature of feminist critical analysis of equality, power,
and consciousness as a template, further questions were formed and answered
regarding equality issues in art history textbooks and curriculum incorporating
feminist art scholarship (a pluralistic approach including, but not limited to, Marxism,
deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and semiotics methods).
Definition of Terms
This is a guide for the reader to become familiar with the terms in the study in
order to identify better with the text which therefore supports dialogue.
9
Agency: “Agency is an active participation in constructing an identity and
resisting oppression and agency is the act of resistance to oppression, which empowers
the person acting (the agent)” (Mayes-Elema, 2003, p. 52). It includes “key
components of agency: identity, resistance, attitude, and voice” (Mayes-Elma, p. 59).
Responsibility stems from agency, and yet itself begins in the deep recesses of
the self. The kind of behavior we engage in does not arise overnight but is
normally a function of many successive layers of choosing over the course of a
life. (May, 1992, p. 17)
Agentic (Perspective of Social Cognitive Theory): “Much of the early
psychological theorizing was founded on behavioristic principles…In this view,
human behavior was shaped and controlled automatically and mechanically by
environmental stimuli” (Bandura, 2001, p. 2).
Through agentic action, people devise ways of adapting flexibly to remarkably
diverse geographic, climatic and social environments; they figure out ways to
circumvent physical and environmental constraints, redesign and construct
environments to their liking, create styles of behavior that enable them to
realize desired outcomes, and pass on the effective ones to others by social
modeling and other experiential modes of influence. (Bandura, p. 23)
Research on brain development underscores the influential role that
agentic action plays in shaping the neuronal and functional structure of the
brain. This is a realm of inquiry in which psychology can make fundamental
10
unique contributions to the biopsychosocial understanding of human
development, adaptation, and change. (Bandura, p. 4)
Androcentric: The term androcentric was coined by educational theorist and
sociologist Charlotte Perkins Gilman; androcentric is a focus entirely on males and
their point of view (Gillman, 1970).
Androcentricism: Androcentricism denotes a socialization process which
sanctifies males for egotistical thinking and behavior and females to adopt selfless
thinking and behavior. (Gilman, 1970).
Anti-Girl/Ideal Girl: The anti-girl is a female who is ugly, excessively
cheerful, brainy, opinionated, pushy, strong, serious, artsy, unrestrained, or
professional (Simmons, 2002). The “ideal girl” is the girl who is popular, happy,
smiling, helpless, dependent, blond/blue eyed, big boobed, stupid, superficial, avoids
conflicts, and is romantically attached to someone with status (Simmons). Anti-girl
images in ancient Greek art include Medusa and the Amazons, while Venus is the
ideal-girl. Also, “a ruling class preoccupation, it is a male idea that ‘high’ and ‘fine’ in
both women and art should be beautiful, but not useful or functional” (Kramarae &
Treichler, 1992, p. 192).
Arrogant Eye:
That eye [which] gives all things meaning by connecting all things to each
other by way of their references to one point—Man. We fear that if we are not
in that web of meaning there will be no meaning: our work will be
11
meaningless, our lives of no value, our accomplishments empty, our identities
illusionary. The reason for this dread, I suggest, is that for most of us,
including the exceptional, a woman existing outside the field of vision of
man’s arrogant eye is really inconceivable. (Kramarae & Treichler, 1992, p.
57)
Artist: Are workers “with no guaranteed income, no benefits, no job security,
in short, as economically exploited producer” (Kramarae & Treichler, 1992, p. 59).
Authority: “Institutionalized power whose use usually goes unquestioned
because authority is regarded as routine” (Humm, 1995, p. 16). Feminist definition:
“That authority is shared, students become authorities for each other” (Maher &
Tetrault, 2001, p. 160).
Bingham & Stryker’s Socioemotional Development Model for Girls: The
Bingham & Stryker model (1995) identifies five stages of healthy development for
females.
1. Stage (1), through age 8, “developing a hardy personality” ( looks forward
to life’s challenges);
2. Stage (2), ages 9-12, “identity as an achiever”;
3. Stage (3), ages 13-16, “skill building for self-esteem”;
4. Stage (4), ages 17-22, “strategies for self-sufficiency (emotional and
financial);
5. Stage (5) adulthood, “satisfaction in work and love choices.”
12
Bloom’s Taxonomy: Bloom’s Taxonomy is a classification of educational
objectives which defines mastery within three domains (cognitive, affective, and
kinesthetic) consisting of several levels each. There are six categories of the cognitive
process dimension: to remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create
(Krathwohl, 2002).
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Education Reform Treatises. The Perkins
Gilman’s education reform treatises maintained the importance of
1. helping children learn critical thinking rather than blind obedience to the
gender biased cultural sway,
2. shedding the androcentric practices found in all Western institutions,
providing a gender-balanced educational system which is to be nurtured by
equitable social norms, and
3. allowing students to pursue courses in the manner and direction of their
interests which would allow appropriate preparation for the admittance of
females into the public sphere as well as promoting psychological health
for active contributions by males and females. (Rudd & Gough, 1999)
Commodification:
Commodification refers to the process by which culture is increasingly being
held captive by the materialistic logic of capitalism in which
everything/everybody is reduced to objects /commodities and thus to its/their
market value. The consequence of this process is that people become uncritical
13
tools of production and consumption—commodified. In this sense, schools
function merely as adjuncts to corporations and the marketplace “(Leistyna,
Woodrum, & Sherblom, 1996, p. 333).
Counter-discourse (Countervailing Ideologies, Counter-hegemonic Practices):
“Counter discourses are languages of critique, demystification, and agency capable of
contesting dominant oppressive ideologies and practices (Leistyna et al., 1996, p.
333).
Critical Pedagogy:
Critical pedagogy is dedicated to the alleviation of human suffering; pedagogy
that prevents students from being hurt, critical pedagogy mandates that schools
don’t hurt students—good schools don’t blame students for failures or strip
students of the knowledge they bring to the classroom. (Kincheloe, 2004, p.
13)
Critical Thinking (Critical Consciousness/Critical Inquiry):
Not to be confused with what’s traditionally thought of as the higher order
thinking skills (problem-solving), critical in the sense implies being able to
understand, analyze, pose questions, and affect and effect the sociopolitical and
economic realities that shape our lives (Leistyna et al., 1996, p. 333)
Cultural Studies:
Cultural studies: an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and sometimes counter
disciplinary field of study that functions within the dynamics of competing
14
definitions of culture…cultural studies questions the equation of culture with
high culture; and cultural studies focuses on the relationship among culture,
power, and domination. (Kincheloe, 2004, p. 56)
Cultural Theory and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA):
[Cultural theorist] “Althusser mentions two major mechanisms (ISA & RSA)
for insuring that people within a State behave according to the rules of that
State, even when it is not in their best interest. ISAs are institutions which
generate ideologies which we as individuals (and groups) then internalize, and
act in accordance with. ISAs include schools, the family, legal systems, the
arts; we come to internalize, to believe, the ideologies that these ISAs create”
(Klages, 2001, para. 4).
Cultural Theory and Repressive State Apparatuses (RSA): “RSAs can enforce
behavior directly, such as the police and (teachers), through these “apparatuses” the
State has the power to force you physically to behave” (Klages, 2001, para. 4).
Deconstruction:
Deconstructionists argue that linguistic meaning is ‘constructed’ through
binary opposites. Deconstruction pulls apart (deconstructs) the process which
create and naturalize these oppositions, deconstructing, for example, the ways
in which women are associated with nature (inferior) and men with culture
(superior). (Humm, 1995, p. 58)
15
Emotion/Cognitive/Visceral System: The limbic system (emotional brain),
prefrontal cortex (cognitive process), and the visceral system (autonomic nervous
system) exchange information and modulate each other (Vertes, 2004). Bland et al.
(2005) state that females perform better on tasks requiring active responses and (after
menarche) females react with increased levels of stress hormones after initial stressful
event; therefore, to restrict movement or agentic behavior actually increases the levels
of stress hormones for longer periods in females more so than males.
False Consciousness:
Linked to the notion that social institutions like schools are agents of
ideological control that work to reproduce dominant beliefs, values, norms, and
forms of oppression. False consciousness is the point at which members of
society buy into their own exploitation and subordination, and become
uncritical tools of production and consumption. The concept is no longer
readily used because the dialectic/opposite of false implies that there is a true
consciousness. In that emancipation is always uncertain and incomplete. This
idea of universal truth is always rejected by critical pedagogy. (Leistyna et al.,
1996, p. 337).
Feminism:
…It is a commitment to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates
Western culture on various levels—sex, race, and class, to name a few – and a
commitment to reorganizing U.S. society so that the self-development of
16
people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and
material desires. (hooks, 1981, p. 195)
Feminist Cultural Theory: “is motivated by the desire to identify, and thus
deconstruct, patriarchal practices and customs encoded in a range of cultural
productions” (Gamble, 2000, p. 210).
Gender-Role: Traditional gender-role experts such as Erik Erikson, have
indoctrinated that the female has a “more ethical commitment… in peace-keeping and
devotion to healing” and the themes of femininity include “giving service, developing
a nonthreatening personality, and cultivating beauty and sex appeal” (Bingham &
Stryker, 1995, p. 41). Whereas Erikson believed that the gender-roles were innate,
Bingham and Stryker state that gender roles are learned through observation and
reinforcement.
Hegemony:
Hegemony, as derived from the work of Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, is
used to express how certain groups manage to dominate others. An analysis of
hegemony is especially concerned with how the imposition of particular
ideologies and forms of authority results in the reproduction of social and
institutional practices through which dominant groups maintain not only their
position of privilege and control, but also consensual support of other members
of society. (Leistyna et al., 1996, p. 337).
17
Ideologies: “Traditional definition involves systems of beliefs. In a critical
theoretical context ideology involves meaning making that supports form of dominant
power” (Kincheloe, 2004, p. 2). The ‘mirror phase’ can be equated with ‘ideology’ in
that this is the means through which individual human subjects misrecognize
themselves and their positions in the social order” (Gamble, 2000, p. 188).
Interpellation “describes the way in which an individual is identified and positioned
within ideological structures” (Gamble, p. 188).
Internalized Oppression:
Internalized oppression occurs when a member(s) of an oppressed group after a
period of abuse and criticism, comes to believe in the dominant group’s
description of them as ‘inferior.’ As a result of such oppression people often
attempt to assimilate into the dominant culture. Critical pedagogy while calling
for an understanding of this psychological phenomenon, nevertheless, insists
that it not simply be reduced to the level of the individual. Psychology in the
critical sense is shaped by one’s sociocultural reality, and thus any
understanding of the individual would require an examination of the root cause
of that psychological state, which pertains to the realm of ideology. (Leistyna
et al., 1996, p. 338)
Mastery:
No longer limited to the acquisition of knowledge on the terms of the experts
the notion of mastery has been expanded by our informants to the
18
interpretation of knowledge from the new perspectives of students, women,
and other marginalized groups. (Maher & Tetreault, 2001, p. 57)
Asking one’s own questions and forming answers from experience (inner) and broader
discourse (outer) in creating new knowledge in the form of what Maher & Tetreault
identified as mastery.
Oedipal Complex:
Freud’s explanation of the female version of the Oedipal complex: the little
girl’s clitoris behaves just like a penis…but when she makes a comparison
with a playfellow, she perceives she has ‘come off badly’…. The healthy
resolution of this complex, according to Freud, is the acceptance of her
castration and the wish to take her mother’s place in her father’s affections,
and thus acquire a ‘feminine attitude’ towards men in general. (Pilcher &
Whelehan, 2004, pp. 120 &121)
Patriarchy:
“institutional sexism” (hooks, 2000, ix).
An important term used in a variety of ways to characterize abstractly the
structures and social arrangements within which women’s oppression is
elaborated…[It is] a system originating in the household wherein the father
dominates, the structure then reproduced throughout the society in gender
relations. (Kramarie & Treichler, 1992, p. 323)
19
Positionality: Refers to the idea that all forms of identity (race, class, gender,
occupation, and etcetera) are relational and therefore transient (Maher & Tetrault,
2001).
Poststructural Psychoanalysis: “Taking their lead from feminist theory, critical
researchers are aware of the patriarchal inscriptions within traditional psychoanalysis
and work to avoid its bourgeois (middle class, conventional, unimaginative, and
selfish), ethnocentric, and misogynist practices” (Kincheloe, 2004, p. 53).
Psychoanalysis:
Psychoanalysis is a mode of reading the unconscious and its relationship to
expression, and as such, it is a semiotic theory. Using this theory for the study
of visual art assumes that art bears traces of the unconscious. Key concepts of
psychoanalytic theory have a specific status (the imaginary, the gaze), or refer
to visual experiences (castration, anxiety, the mirror stage), to sign-making
(condensation, displacement), or to concepts we tend to visualize (the breast,
the phallus). (Bal & Bryson, 1991, p. 195)
Resistance/Oppositional Identity:
Resistance (oppositional identity) has been traditionally been attributed to
deviant behavior, individual pathology, learned helplessness, cultural
deprivation, and genetic flaws. Critical pedagogy, on the other hand, sees
resistance as a legitimate response to domination, used to help individuals or
groups deal with oppression. (Leistyna et al., 1996, p. 343)
20
Semiotics:
Images are complex collections of signs and symbols; and semiotics presents a
number of concepts that help us understand how signs communicate
meaning…alternate semiotic readings of images, even far-fetched
readings,…establish the portability or contestability of the relations between
significations and signifieds...fostering this revelation promotes a critical
awareness as a prelude to emancipatory action. (Cary, 1998, p. 191)
Spiral of Silence: The Spiral of Silence is a model which concludes that many
people will not express their opinion out of fear of criticism or isolation when holding
a different view from the dominant group. If a topic activates silence, it often is
because the topic itself is a threat to social cohesion. Perceived public opinion
influences behavior (Noelle-Neumann, 1984).
Voice:
Voice simply refers to peoples’ authentic self-expression, with an
understanding that people are situated in personal histories of engagement with
their cultural, racial, and gender identities. Finding one’s/using one’s voice
refers to a quality of authenticity, that one is speaking with integrity and from a
position of self-empowerment, or even liberation. (Leistyna et al., 1996, p.
344)
21
Mayes-Elma (2003) relates voice to resistance as acting in the face of opposition;
using one’s voice when taking a stand or negotiating ”whether or not she is successful
is irrelevant” (p. 68).
Organization of the Study
The thesis is organized in five chapters. Chapter 1 contains the purpose,
significance, methodology, limitations, theoretical framework, definition of terms of
the study. Chapter 2 is a feminist scholarly literature review of the gendered history of
art education, role representation, the dichotomy in art labels, the issue of coverage in
the amount of text devoted to male and female art history texts, and gender inclusion
in art. Chapter 3 describes method of content analysis employed to analyze the
curricula. Chapter 4 presents the analyzed data. Chapter 5 includes the discussion,
limitations, recommendations, and conclusions of the present study.
22
Chapter 2
REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE
This chapter reviews feminist art literature according to the areas of Gendered
Art Education, Feminist Art Scholarship Response to Gendered Art Education,
Textbook Analysis, Role Representation in Art and Art History Texts, The Dichotomy
in Art Labels, Text Devotion According to Gender, and The Importance of Gender
Inclusion in Art Education
Gendered Art Education
Unconventionally, this section’s discussion will join the histories of art
education and the general training of the artist. Typically, the literature involving fine
art and the professional artist are not in any way associated with the activity of art
education--the art programs for the non-professional artist (including K-12 education).
Furthermore, college art departments are one of the last of the Humanities to accept
feminist scholarship into their programs (Broude & Garrard, 1987; Keifer-Boyd,
2003). Such an exclusionary approach has limited the mainstream recognition of the
female professional artist and art education history (Soucy, 2001). Therefore, while
there is a prolific amount of research on the male artist, the literature involving the
education of the female artist (child or adult) is comparatively scant.
Exasperatingly, there are many who do not realize that women artists have
been contributors to art since the beginning of art itself (Buchholz, 2003). Sadker &
Sadker (as cited in Collins & Sandell, 1984) have stated that most students do not
23
know the artistic heritage of women artists. Consequently, for many, the role of the
artist is often associated with males. This of course is reinforced in a host of ways
through our androcentric culture where value is placed on male activity and the belief
that “white” and “male” is the norm or standard for “human” (Maher & Tetreault,
2001, p. 229).
For the (European) male artist, the guilds, academies, and working from a live
model were pertinent to their artistic development and training. While the male artist
had steady access to these circumstances of development; women artists were often
denied or had only partial with fluctuating access (Greer, 2001). Up until the 19th
century, many Western women artists who gained access to such training and
exposure were most likely from artistic families or from wealthy families who could
afford and were willing to pay for private lessons (Chadwick, 2007; Guerilla Girls,
1998).
Typically, the history of the women artist is not packaged as neatly as it is with
the male artist. Except in artistic families, the women artist was excluded from work
and whose work was often devalued. Depending on the cultural environment, women
were allowed to become “artists.” Therefore, much variance pertains to when a
woman could finally study at the academies. There is even variance, based on locale,
when women artists were allowed to study the nude in the arts. Furthermore, poor
records and attitudes often prevented documentation of the exact date of when women
artists were accepted into the Life classes with nude models. It has been said, that
24
since art is dead (nothing is left to create), women artists may as well be let into the
field (Piper, 2001).
The following paragraphs reflect the conventional stages of the (Euro-ethnic)
artist as well as the gendered art education of the non-professional artist, excluding the
artwork in the monastery and convent. The literature covered begins with the medieval
guild artisan, then moves to the Renaissance (divisive moment of time for the artist),
then to the academies, until reaching the area of study from the nude model. Each
stage was dependent on the preceding stage. Traditionally speaking, limitations for the
medieval artisan were “resolved” by the Renaissance academies. Academies of fine
art, Life classes, and professionalism went hand in hand.
First Stage: Medieval Artisans
Since medieval artists received no university training in art, the study of art
began in the “field” through guild apprenticeship (Elkins, 2001). However, since
females were not allowed to seek employment to work with a painting master, female
artists more so than male artists were more likely to have had a male artist relative and
be member of a family household workshop (Buchholz, 2003).
Generally, painting apprenticeships began at a young age and were given poor
living quarters: sleeping on the floor with the other apprentices. Apprentices started
with menial jobs (tending the fire, sweeping the floor) which gradually required more
skill: cleaning brushes, grinding pigments, mixing colors; transferring master’s
drawing to board, and painting areas on canvas such as the background or drapery
25
(Greer, 2001). Punishments were severe and spontaneous for mistakes, and most
apprentices never became masters (Greer).
The main purpose of the guilds was to maintain economic advantage. Only
members of a particular guild could engage in the craft or trade of that guild though
access to membership was generally barred to unskilled or peasant women. The guilds
were organizations that provided training, regulated wages, prices, and craft quality, as
well specified trade arraignments; craft workers without guild membership were
economically vulnerable (Kowaleski & Bennett, 1989).
As artisans, silk women were part of a skilled craft and trade. Girls served long
apprenticeships under silk-mistresses in order to learn valued skills of the silk-workers
trade. Silk women, as throwers, turned raw silk into yarn, as weavers they wove
ribbons and lace, and as silk traders embarked in lucrative trade commissions.
Although the silk-workers of London between 1308 and 1504 were a united force in
successfully petitioning Parliament for various requests for economic protection, the
silk-workers never formed into a guild though the silk-workers trade resembled a guild
in practice (Kowaleski & Bennett, 1989).
Those women (usually married to or widows of guild members) who were
allowed to participate in the male dominated guilds could only receive partial
membership and were not allowed to vote or hold any guild officer positions, and
basically were treated as second class citizens, though such “entry-level
apprenticeship” offered some form of protection (Kowaleski & Bennett, 1989).
26
However, such membership could be lost or revoked, if the guilds did not approve of
who and when the members married. Such loss of membership because of marriage
would most likely occur with female memberships; since workshops during this period
were often family enterprises and complexities could arise if a husband was a member
of a different guild than his wife. However, much of the medieval artisan work by
women is still considered craft and their guild membership is many times not part of
conventional art history writing.
Second Stage: Renaissance Artists
Before and during the Middle Ages, “artists” were manual laborers or craftworkers. However, journeymen and art masters in the guilds resisted their working
class position through attempts to legitimize their field by gaining professional status.
The resistance mindset was greatly influenced by the literature of Italian poets and
storytellers, such as Ficino and Vasari, which flattered and served the identities of
artists and patrons (Kultermann, 1993; Rubins, 1990).
Treatises by Vasari and others referred to artistic genius and promulgated the
Classical aim of art to achieve beauty. Though the Polyclitus Canon or treatise only
survived in a fragmentary state (an incomplete sentence all but remains) and Plato
showed marginal concern for theorizing about the visual arts (antiquity held no term
for “art”), Renaissance artists strategically allied themselves with the writings of the
Canon and Plato as a model for self-propagation (Barasch, 2000). The exclusionary
artist’s biographical style like that of Giorgio Vasari permeated European thought,
27
thereby setting a standard, which separated the art that reflected the “perfect” Roman
ideals above all other art (High, 2001).
In addition, early Renaissance academies, were modeled after the academy of
Plato, began to assemble to counter the exclusive Catholic university system and
provided social support for the artist. Like Plato’s academy, the Renaissance
academies were informal and looked more like study groups among friends, mentors,
and supporters (Elkins, 2001). Initially, academies did not teach “art”, but rather held
informal discussions on subjects ranging from language, philosophy, to the semisecretive topic of astrology (Pevsner, 1973), though the record for women’s
involvement in these early academies is incomplete.
Though the Renaissance is associated with tributes to male accomplishments,
there was a period in Italy that Chadwick (2007) calls “The Other Renaissance” that
had its own cultural, geographical, and historical distinctions and incorporated women
artists into the city’s artistic and civic spheres (p. 87). Numerous Renaissance women
painters, miniaturists, writers, printers, educators, engravers, and woodcutters lived
and worked in Bologna, Italy. Some Bolognese artists created excellent art work while
others created mediocre art, others had large families while some childless, and like
most artists everywhere deadlines were sometimes not met or left work undone, while
one artist in particular worked day and night fulfilling commissions early and died
young of exhaustion (Greer, 2001). But all who worked belonged to a guild and the
painters in Bologna belonged to the goldsmith’s guild (Chadwick, 2007).
28
Although by no means was Bologna a feminist city (Greer, 2001). Vasari had
mentioned that women artists who did not have the resources such as a protector or a
family could fall prey to male persecution, while those female artists who belonged to
powerful noble-families were protected from various abuses of power (Greer).
Furthermore, in response to Bolognese gender codes, the painter Chiara Varotari
publicly retorted female acquiescence in her tract advocating women’s rights (Greer).
When it was finally recognized that female talent in Bologna was not due to
prodigies of nature but rather to an art education that was not only gender inclusive but
was exceptionally supportive in developing the skilled artist, Bolognese women artists
ceased receiving the support extended to prodigies (Greer, 2001). In the century that
could have been labeled “The Other Renaissance” many women artists were given
opportunities such as guild membership and becoming guild mistresses, but none
gained admittance to the famous Carracci academy, since the focus was on the study
of the nude male (Chadwick, 2007).
Third Stage: Academy Members
As time went on, the early informal academies of the Renaissance flourished
and became more bureaucratic, developing into what we now consider fine art
academies. The academies gradually took over the guild’s role in training artists.
Some academies allowed women to attend academy meetings others did not. The
opportunities for women’s involvement varied. From the 17th century to the
29
19th century the academy influence came from the Royal Academies, the Académie de
Saint Luc, and the provincial and private academies in Europe.
The French Academy
The Académie de Saint Luc had medieval guild origins and admitted women in
small numbers. In addition, the Académie de Saint Luc allowed women artists to enter
the public exhibitions (Greer, 2001). However, in 1777, by royal decree, the Académie
de Saint Luc was abolished and the "alternative” public art exhibitions were outlawed
(Mirzoeff, 1997). Unlike the Académie de Saint Luc, the Académie Royale (which
was founded in 1648) prided itself that it was distanced from the guilds and
artisans/manual laborers (although had guild affiliation with the Goblin factory) and
was modeled after the Academia del Disegno of Florence where Vasari exerted much
influence. Traditional art historians have maintained the image of the “exclusive
institution” that the Academie Royale ‘created’. Yet most are unconcerned about and
overlook the Académie’s early concern for gender and genre equality during the
Fronde (Mirzoeff).
Louis XIV attested that he extended his support to all excellent artists
regardless of their gender and thereby allowed one woman artist gain admittance to the
Académie in 1663 (Honig Fine, 1978). In 1706, women artists were no longer allowed
admittance to the Académie, while a later statuette decreed that women memberships
were permitted in extremely limited numbers (Harris & Nochlin, 1976). With the
Académie de Saint Luc disbanded, the already successful Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun and
30
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard sought and gained acceptance as members of the Académie
Royale in 1783 (Havice, 1981; Harris & Nochlin).
Memberships attained by women were more honorific than anything else.
Unlike the other (male) Academicians, they did not hold any voting rights nor could
they attend the Life classes with the male nude model which was the fundamental
training to the highest genre: history painting (Greer, 2001; Havice 1981).
Because women were not allowed to study from the nude male they were
granted simultaneous positions as an agréé (associate Academician) and an
Academician (Harris & Nochlin, 1976). Those women who were admitted had already
proved themselves as successful artists outside the academy. Though admittance did
offer something to women artists, for the Académie membership held status and as
members they could exhibit in the exclusive Académie’s Salons. The Salons became
particularly important to artists careers over the next 200 years.
During the French Revolution the Académie Royale gradually dissolved and
received a new name: L’Académie de Peinture et Sculpture. In 1791, Labille-Guiard
proposed in a members meeting that the limits on the number of women memberships
should be lifted though no female member should hold an administrator’s position, but
as serve as counciellers (Greer, 2001; Havice, 1981; Harris & Nochlin, 1976).
Members passed the motions for removing the restrictions on the number of women
artists’ memberships and revoking female Academician positions, though the
counceillers proposal was not granted (Mirzoeff, 1997).
31
Labille-Guiard’s proposal resulted in many women exhibiting at the yearly
Salons. For the inclusive membership proposal countered the closing of the Académie
de Saint Luc where many women artists were displaced without a professional
affiliation. However, Labille-Guiard’s proposal created a further divide among
members of the “new” academy. Such divisions concerning gender and genre had and
would influence the pedagogical and bureaucratic structures of the academy for years
to come (McTighe, 1998; Mirzoeff, 1997).
The Provincial Academy in Europe
Several changes occurred with the formation of the New Republic in France.
During this period the importance of the provincial academies to women artists in
Europe increased. Greer (2001) listed some women who were able to attain high
positions within the provincial academies, such as, Professorin Katrina Treu at the
Dusseldorf Academy and Pensionarin Caroline Friedrich at the Dresden Academy;
and in the 1780s-1790s women artists could exhibit in the Berlin Salons. But
according to Greer most provincial academies preferred to cater to the local, young,
and unskilled female while actually obstructing the serious women artists.
The English Academy
Limitations for professional women artists could also be found at the Royal
Academy in England. For example, although Angelina Kauffman and Mary Moser
(daughters of two male members) were two of the founding members of the Royal
Academy in 1768, they were practically eliminated in a 1772 group portrait of the
32
founding members: for as the other male founding members surrounded themselves
around the epitome of the academy, a male nude model, Moser and Kauffman were
regulated to the back wall as portrait busts (Chadwick, 2007). After the membership of
Kauffman and Moser, full membership for women at the British Royal Museum was
banned until 1936.
The Private Academy
Since women were not allowed to attend the schools or become members at the
tuition free Royal Academies, artists responded by opening up private schools that
accepted women, of course, charging them double what a male artist would pay
(Chadwick, 2007; Clark, 2008). However, the attention most women received from the
painting masters was often only minimal and sometimes patronizing (Greer, 2001).
In 1868, the Julian Academy in Paris was founded and admitted men and
women (Fehrer, 1994). Men and women at the Académie Julian participated in co-ed
life drawing classes with a model. Julian started his private academy in response to the
exclusionary protocol of the state sponsored Ècole des Beaux-Arts (offspring of the
Academy of Literature and Fine Art). Since women were not admitted at the
Ècole/Académie des Beaux-Arts, it was only the enlightened painting masters who
would accept the responsibility for women painters in their ateliers. However, in 18761877, Julian succumbed to the pressures by conventional and affluent –middle class
(bourgeois) families to provide draped models in newly separated ateliers, so that
33
women artists could still attain the essential “courtier” training without the dangerous
influence of the nude model and the company of the male artists (Fehrer).
Ècole des Beaux-Arts
The state sponsored (tuition free) Ècole des Beaux-Arts was the much later
descendent of the L’Académie de Peinture et Sculpture and was the most prestigious
fine art school in the world. The widespread campaigns by Hélène Bertaux to allow
women artists admittance to the Ècole des Beaux-Arts were successful (Clark, 2008).
Bertaux (who was a wife to an influential affiliate of the Ècole des Beaux-Arts) later
became the only female to serve on the Salon. In 1897, women artists were finally
accepted at the school, but not without the howling “down with women!” from angry
male students (Clark).
Though admitted, the women artists had not gained “unbridled freedom”
(Weisberg & Becker, 1999, p. 131), they would receive little encouragement from the
establishment and in their personal spheres; and self-doubts may have been all the
while if attempts were made to break out of prescribed roles without social support
(Huber, 1974). By 1900, women artists at the Beaux-Arts were no longer denied entry
to the workshops. However, when scholarships were granted to women, hordes of
angry men stormed the school resulting in a temporarily closure, the scholarships were
then rescinded. By 1903, women artists could now compete for the Prix de Rome,
which unfortunately had lost much of its meaning (Honing-Fine, 1978). As women
34
artists were entering the Ècole des Beaux-Arts for a career advancing education, the
men artists were exiting for better opportunities elsewhere (Tickner, 1980).
The American Academy
In the United States, the first fine art academy was the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts (PAFA) established in 1805, but did not admit female artists until
1824 with participation limited to exhibiting in the Annuals. In fact, the PAFA was
based on the gender biased French Academy (Homer, 2002). However, in 1844,
advancements took place as women artists were allowed to have exclusive use of the
statue gallery (where the fig-leafs were attached to the Apollo Belvidere and the
Laocoon) for one hour a day three days a week out of two months of the year (Huber,
1974).
Pressures on The Committee on Instruction and the Board from the women art
students at PAFA initiated additional Ladies art courses (Huber, 1974). Radical steps
were taken in 1860, in that women artists formed their own fully clothed modeling
class behind locked doors; they were admitted to the anatomy/dissection segregated
lectures (the proposed manikin was too costly to purchase). However, some of the
women artists stated that the male artists often left the dissections mutilated, dried up,
or with parts missing after viewing them so the next class (the women’s) could not
adequately study them; other complaints included male art student behavior as
obnoxious and rude (Huber).
35
Fourth Stage: Life Classes
When exactly the nude male model was allowed for women artists to study at
PAFA is not entirely clear, even to extant curators at the academy. However, what is
widely known and discussed (though details are unclear) is the incident of 1886 in
which Thomas Eakins, a professor at PAFA, ripped off the loin cloth from a male
model in the presence of female students, causing an uproar and ending his career at
the academy. Typically, the story ends there with no mention of when women artists
gained access to the nude. In addition, any further details of Eakins teaching
relationship with female students often are not addressed.
Homer (2002) gives insights into Eakins character as well as some experiences
women art students may have encountered while at the academy. In general, Eakins
has been described as having an unconscious hostility towards women (Adams, 2005;
Homer). It was reported that his behavior at times was troublesome: he seemed to
enjoy asking women in public if they wanted to urinate; once he reentered the
classroom nude and walked up to a female student and said “I don’t know whether you
ever saw a naked man before; I thought you might like to see one.” (Homer, p. 178).
His general position on the education of women was that if they were going to be
educated at all, then they must be made to be more like men, even if it took shock and
distress (Homer).
Whether Eakins possessed a “scientific objectivity” towards the nude or could
not control his desire/need for shock value, it is known that he never fully recovered
36
the confidence in himself or in his art after his dismissal at PAFA (Homer, 2002).
Despite Eakins’ insecurities, he was not able to avoid another scandal where he once
again removed the loin cloth from the model during an anatomy lecture at Drexel
Institute of Philadelphia in 1895 (Homer, 2002). However, during this era the term
nude was often used for partially draped (Greer, 2001), Eakins may have been
misunderstood when he had said in advance that a ‘nude’ model was to be used.
Again, because of the interchange of terms or possibly poor record keeping, it
is difficult to determine the exact date of when women artists studied the nude. For
example, Rubenstein (1982) states that in 1893, women artists could study from male
nude models at the Royal Academy in England, though nude models had to wear
bathing drawers and a light cloth (9’x3’) that wrapped around the loins, passed
through the legs, tucked in at the waist and secured with a leather belt. When
historians interchange the terms of nude and draped regarding models, deciphering
dates become confusing.
In another example, Rubenstein (1982) has pronounced the date as 1877 for
women artists to study the male in a segregated ladies class at PAFA. Rubenstein’s
(1982) conclusion is based on two pieces of evidence:
1. Record of Accounts that lists a male model was paid for a ladies life class on
April 3, 1877;
2. In 1883, a letter to the President of the Pennsylvania Academy complained
about the sight of “nude” males in the ladies life class.
37
However, because of the interchange of terms of nude/draped, examinations of
additional contexts are needed. The earliest American example of a drawing made in
1859 at a Ladies Life class at PAFA, is of a male model wearing what looks like tight
fitting swimming shorts (Peet, 1990). One month before this drawing was made, there
was a notation in the minutes of the Board of Directors that an “old man” was paid as
a model, but it went unmentioned whether the model was clothed or not (Peet, 1990).
Historical analysis of women’s artistic heritage reveals social structure.
Women artists’ access to the male nude was dependent on the “local” men’s
acceptance of such training for female artists. For even post-modern women artists
have had limited access in Life classes. Artist Judy Chicago (b.1930) reported that in
her Life studio class the male model had to wear a jock strap so as to prevent the
possibility of an erection (Lucie-Smith, 2000). And Life classes with nude models at
Universities in the South were often not offered until as late as the 1970s (Havice,
1981).
Gendered Art Education for School Age Children
Art education that does not concern itself with Life classes is less controversial
and offensive to others. Many early private educational academies in the United States
were either co-ed or single sex, offered courses that shaped a cultured taste for later
product consumption of mass produced replicas of commissioned items (Stankiewicz,
2002). Such academies served their paying cliental by providing an education that was
suited toward the parents’ goals for their children’s education, therefore the education
38
in the academies were heterogeneous, offering courses ranging from elementary to
collegiate courses in varying subjects (Beadie, 1999). However, one homogenous goal
for middle class females to learn was their appropriate “artistic” role of cultural
refinement and emulating the elite class (Garber, 1990; Stankiewicz, 2002).
The education of young females and males (along with those who were not art
academy bound) in the early 19th century were trained in the arts for personal
refinement and social control as a reflection of a “courtier” education (Stankiewiez,
2002). The purpose of art education for young females was to develop a genteel
manner which would attract an upwardly mobile spouse and to acquire the skills
needed to be good mothers in happy retired married lives. The amateur artist was the
expected aspiration for females.
The function of art education for males was to provide skills necessary for
occupations such as engineering that would enable them to provide a middle class
lifestyle for their families. In addition, art education maintained traditional social
hierarchies in that a subscription of emulating the class above will provide access to it:
middle class imitate aristocratic culture, lower classes emulate middle class taste, and
schoolrooms mimic “parlors or classical temples” (Stankiewiez, 2002, p. 332).
As the “artistic” goals of learning were different for males and females, the
goals or objectives were also different for the classes. What would eventually be
called “tracking”, specific curriculum based on social class, was offered (Amburgy,
2001). Art education divided the economically advantaged students from the poorer
39
students, offering technical art classes to the lower strata students while reserving the
courses in fine art for the higher income students. Fine art education was granted for
the few to serve an even smaller group (Cary, 1998).
As the very purpose of the fine art academies was to train artists to reflect the
artistic taste of the elite, with the industrial revolution, the factory workers could churn
out products in mass that reflected the “good” taste of the dominant culture as well as
increasing the profits for the factory owners (Cary, 1998).
A strata division in art education was enabled with The Massachusetts
Drawing Act of 1870. The act required drawing as a mandatory subject in public
schools, including the establishment of adult education courses in drawing, in towns
with a population over 10,000 (Kern, 1985). The Drawing Act was very strategic in
that larger towns were not only closer to the factories, but a larger population that was
trained offered a larger supply of skilled artisans/workers in mechanical drawing, so
U.S. manufactures could gain a competitive edge in the international marketplace
(Cary, 1998; Kern, 1985).
Kern (1985) completed an historical analysis of the purposes of art education
in the United States from the late 1800s to the 1970s. Kern identified three main
teaching objectives in art education: to prepare students for industrial draftsmen
positions, moral development, and creative expression of the gifted. Kern found a
general pattern of tightening the control of free expression in art to maintain standard
of art appreciation. Historical documents listed the attitudes about the purposes of art
40
held by the Education Departments: In Maine of 1895, learn by doing—1st graders to
learn geometric forms using the slate, paper, clay, blocks, but never by dictation;
Idaho in 1915: to determine and promote gifted art students; Pennsylvania in 1918: to
teach the joy of work through ‘good’ art (all male artists and subjects, except for a
Madonna); Idaho in 1920: determined that community interest of art instruction was
almost non-existent; and North Dakota in 1927: to learn ‘good’ taste for beautiful
possessions and surroundings and the ideals of great artists (Kern). Kern concluded
that by 1979, creative expression for the gifted and primary grades was no longer of
interests, for it was replaced with the overall purpose to teach traditional (albeit
subjective) “intellectualism” in art education with art history.
Feminist Response to Gendered Art Education
It was not until the social unrest of the 1960s and early 1970s which set the
stage for the acceptance of pioneering art historians questioning the status quo. In
1971, Linda Nochlin asked the seemingly essentialist question in the title of her article
“Why Are There No Great Women Artists?”, but provided radical answers that started
the impetus of the transformation of art history (Gouma-Peterson &Mathews, 1987).
Nochlin challenged the mystique of the artist when she stated that artists are a product
of their environment and their socialization processes, for the myths of the great innate
genius artist were culturally contrived (Nochlin, 1974). And although Nochlin stated
that indeed there had been no “Great” female artists comparable to such artists as
Michelangelo or Raphael, she also asserted that if females were given as much
41
attention and opportunity or stimulation for achievement as males, there would have
been a “Great” Pablita like there was the “Great” Pablo Picasso.
Nochlin’s 1971 essay on the cultural myths of the artist and art world spurred
feminist scholarship in other areas of art. Since art survey textbooks follow the art
museum format (Tucker, 2002), feminist scholarship was drawn to analyze
educational material. In 1974, after reviewing the curriculum in art history survey
courses, Lise Vogel posed questions such as, “Where are the reproductions and slides
of women artists?” “Why can’t one find syllabi covering issues of women, art, and
feminism?” “What is the meaning of the almost complete lack of feminist studio and
art history courses in the schools?” (Vogel, 1974).
As feminist art scholarship advanced, art education in the schools maintained a
formalist and authoritative approach to instruction during the early Discipline Based
Art Education (DBAE) program of the 1980s and 1990s (Hamblen, 1988; Delacruz &
Dunn, 1996). The intellectualized approach of DBAE and the traditional style of
education had driven away and alienated many artistically talented or otherwise
interested students because the focus was no longer driven by the students’ interests,
but of outside interests and standards (Noddings, 1992). Outcries from art educators
relayed how important relevancy and meaning were to the curriculum and appealed
for the adoption of more pluralistic approaches to art education to replace the standard,
sexist, racist, universal methodology of traditional art education (Elkins, 2002; Garber,
1990).
42
Textbook Analysis
Although in the field of art, historical analysis is the general method of
investigation (Moriarty & Barbatsis, 2005), content analysis has also been a method to
investigate art. However, for textbook analysis the comparative review is the preferred
analytic approach by many art history scholars, as content analysis in art history
survey texts seems exiguous.
O’Kelly (1983) performed content analysis of gender image role of three major
art history textbooks. There were 971 art images examined from the texts of (a)
Canaday, (b) Janson, and (c) Gardner, from four periods of art (Gothic, Renaissance,
Baroque, and Modern). The images were coded for gender of subjects, number of
subjects of each gender, nudity, subject activities and roles, and period of art work.
O’Kelly (1983) found that most male depictions in art were in active and varied roles,
while the female images were often limited in roles and activities. Overall, the ratio
for art depictions were 70% male subjects and 30 % female. O’Kelly noted that this
ratio did not reflect the actual human population. Furthermore, the roles of women
were predominantly depicted as either idle nudes or the Virgin Mary, although one
image of a female soldier was represented. O’Kelly observed that the Virgin Mary
image was slowly replaced with wife and mother images, but these later images were
really sub-themes of the earlier female image. Rarely were males depicted in such
unattainable roles like women were, for the Christ images only represented 3% of the
43
male images. O’Kelly stated that the fine art images in textbooks reflected the wider
society’s view of gender roles.
In a historical comparative analysis on the origins of the art history survey text,
Schwarzer (1995) examined 19th century German survey texts and made comparisons
to current texts. Schwarzer relayed that German 19th century art history thought
formulated the ideological structure of early American surveys. This is so, reminds
Schwarzer, for many of the influential 20th century texts were authored by the art
historians who were expulsed from 1930s Germany. The 19th century German
ideology of the texts concentrates on the indoctrination of uniting in a linear fashion
Hellenistic realism and medieval Germanic Christianity for the German identity and
one can still find some of those elements in extant surveys (Schwarzer).
In a later published content analysis investigation, “Have There Now Been
Any Great Women Artists?,” Clark, Folgo, and Pichette (2005) focused on the degree
of visibility of women artists within art history textbooks and the characteristics of the
art historians who were least and most likely to include women artists in their
textbooks. Four indicators were chosen to measure visibility (a) the ratio of women
artists to men artists within index, (b) the number of women who received at least one
paragraph in text, (c) the ratio of artists reproductions between male and female artists,
and (d) the percentage of texts that mention women artists. The final ratios were
determined from the counts of two readers. They achieved .90 to .99 in the Pearson’s
correlation coefficient, a marker for a high degree of inter-observer reliability. The
44
college and high school textbooks included three pre-1974 texts and nine recent texts.
The study could not conclude whether or not women artists were established in the
canon comparably as Michelangelo or Raphael, for not all texts included the same
female artists as they did/and do for the male artists. However, the researchers were
certain that in order for specific artists to exist in the mindset of mainstream America
they would need to be included in the text books; in addition, such textbook
appearances would greatly inspire female students to believe in themselves in
becoming great artists and prepare others to believe in them too.
In 2006, Clark & Folgo performed a content analysis study to determine which
type of art historian would include women artists in their textbooks. The sample for
this study investigated recent and pre-1974 editions of eight college and nine high
school art history textbooks. Of the sample, it was determined that Preble & Preble
text showed the highest ratio of women artists to men artists (20.5:100) and Gombrich
the lowest (0.43:100) of the college texts; and for high school texts: Ragans text had a
ratio of (44.0:100) women artists to men artists while Janson & Janson had the lowest
for this criteria (9.1:100). From the data, Clark and Folgo (2006) determined that texts
authored by solely female art historians included the highest number of women artists
whether for high school or college audiences, when the text was co-authored by
male(s) and female(s) the text included less women artists than the all female art
authored texts, but included more women artists than the all male authored texts. In
addition, Clark and Folgo expressed their disappointment in the decision for and the
45
rationale behind the exclusion of women artists in textbooks by clearly knowledgeable
art historians.
In a comparative analysis of current art history survey text books, Peers (2006)
examined the current characteristics of art history texts, the purpose of current
revisions of art history textbooks, the general formats of widely used textbooks, and
student responses to art-history survey textbooks. Peers found that the text of Stokstad
(stated as author of a widely used textbook in the California State University system),
is revised every three years, which currently is more frequent than other subjects
require; each revision stimulates new book sales. Stokstad replaced Janson as
bestselling author when market research considered the patriarchal ideology of Janson
was irrelevant to students' needs. Peers identified the majority of art history students
are predominantly female, without a strong background in either history or mythology,
overwhelmed by the prolific amount of information in text to be memorized, and
underrepresented in the text. In response to market and students' needs, Stokstad
defined her edition as a “magazine-like format…not a New York Times but a USA
Today approach…they want something lively, instant” (Peers, p. 128). The researcher
Peers distinguished the current top four standard textbook art historians as Janson,
Gardener, Gombrich, and Stokstad. Although, some schools such as Columbia and
Wesleyan have decided not to use art history textbooks in their curriculum as they
were deemed less than useful (Peers).
46
Weidman (2007) noted that the texts of Janson and Stokstad (among many
others) have the same corporate publisher (Abrams/Pearson/Prentice Hall) and are
consciously marketed to specific populations. Each text will find various criticisms
according to interpretation of criteria, and Weidman, in discussing the lineage of art
history text, noted that The Guerilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of
Western Art (Guerilla Girls, 1998) was a “serious rejoinder to every survey book
published before it” (p. 89). Weidman’s version of the pattern of scholarship that
critiqued the art survey texts began with the passionate feminists in the 1970s to the
vitriolic mouthpieces of the 1980s and 1990s who attempted to tear down the very
traditions (class distinctions) of art history, until common ground was made (around
2000) where Weidman perceived an overall acceptance for critical discourses and the
traditional formalistic approach as viable styles for art survey text writing.
Role Representation in Art and Art History Texts
Hilson (1991) contends that traditional art history generally is limited to
studying the universally acknowledged masterpieces of specific periods. Correct
labeling of style, materials used, and time period are essential information for the
student to learn about each art object in traditional art history curriculum. However,
Hilson argued that what often is not discussed in the texts may be initially more
engaging for students, such as, how the art object fits into their cultural schemata.
Traditional art history affirms the dominant culture’s view of gender roles, by
referring to images of females as binary to male images. Whereas male images are
47
often static and are depicted as the ideal human, females have a more fluid image in
that they change form and meaning in order to maintain or elevate male status or
power (Smyth, 2001).
Acceptable female roles in patriarchal cultures includes the virgin, mother,
muse, prostitute, monster, and witch (Gouma-Peterson & Mathews, 1987).
Unfortunately, women’s roles in traditional art history have not always been
empowering or even accurate (Hilson, 1991). For example, in Classical Greece it was
more likely that males would have used magical incantations, although females have
been traditionally assigned the negative witch label (Schmidt, 1995)
The dominant culture has the authority and power to assign and give meaning
to role images in art that elevate their own position. Hence, the presence of females in
art has been an epithet for male fears and desires (Guoma-Peterson & Peterson, 1987).
Because of their legitimate and sole participation to the intellectual and creative
spheres, the dominant culture in Western society (white male culture) is able to tell
their story of art based on their psychological needs, while excluding other cultures’
stories (histories) of art (Guerilla Girls, 1998; Parker & Pollock, 1982).
According to traditional gender roles in art, women’s value is dependent on
their desirableness to men, and as women they can never measure to a man’s worth;
they will never be as strong, intelligent, or produce work that is comparable
(Chadwick, 2007). Women and men are given roles that are antithesis to one another:
males are powerful while females are either passive or out of control--whichever
48
completes the comparison best (Smyth, 2001). Many extant editions of art history
texts espouse the sexualized and subordinate stereotypical female through the art
images of choice, the invisibility of the female artist, and the exclusion of feminist art
criticism (Chadwick, 2007; Clark & Folgo, 2006; Elkins, 2002; Pajaczkowska, 2001;
Peers, 2006).
Woman as Sex Symbol
Such an exclusive power to give meaning to the image roles in art, traditional
art history has controlled what images in art have signified (Parker & Pollock, 1982).
For example, the female nude is often connoted as a stereotypical image of
Venus/Aphrodite. This goddess (prostitute) image has been used to support
androcentric “hypocritical” morality as a means to denote sexual prowess in the male
artist and patron while objectifying and condemning the female nude for whose very
purpose was painted for male enjoyment in the first place (Berger, 1972). Rarely will
traditional art history texts openly divulge the “nude” construct in art. The meanings
behind stereotypical nude female imagery become part of the evaded curriculum in art
history textbooks.
Unfortunately, the coy Venus image is the one female role many students will
ever be exposed to (Hilson, 1991). This sexualized, but reserved Venus/Aphrodite
image comes in many varying forms such as dead, sleeping, or even passively
standing while stained from ejaculations (Spivey, 1996).
49
In addition, the Greek Kore is a subdued Aphrodite and is another mainstay
female image found in art history textbooks. The Kore sculptures are of unwed
adolescent females and were characterized quite differently from the accepted dress
and gaze of their human counterparts. In one such sculpture, the gaze looked straight
ahead while the garments were tightly pulled to reveal the shape of the breasts and
buttocks with an awareness and pleasure in her facial expression that she is under the
gaze of the audience, this Kore also attained the common inscription identification of
an agalma or object of amusement (Reeder, 1995a). Understanding history is
important to how art relates the present to the past (Nochlin, 1974). However,
traditional art history course texts rarely analyze the importance of the female gaze or
the agalma inscription in relation to present female behavior and self-image. The Kore
then becomes another female image in which the multidimensional meanings are lost
for art history students.
Woman as Monster
For ancient Greek men, gesture, gaze, hairstyle, voice, or anything else
associated with the female had significance. In Greek myth, sirens used their words for
power, Aphrodite’s voice stole the minds of men, and gorgons had a frightening shrill.
Therefore, it was very important to keep control of female gesture, dress, and gaze
through the social expectancy of demonstrating aidos and sophrosyne, where the eyes
of females were always cast downward donating submissiveness, passivity, and sexual
50
shame; their voice was never to be heard so as to spare men an irresistible lure
(Reeder, 1995b).
The female gaze had so much power over men that it was often a topic in
Greek myth and therefore art. One myth about female gaze was the monster female
image Medusa. In ancient Greek thought, looking at the Medusa was like looking
where one should not; possible postmodern interpretations include: Medusa was
associated with erotic qualities of her throat, (throats were sometimes equated with
vaginas, for Pegasus and Chrysaor were both born from Medusa’s neck), her hair was
snakelike or pubic (Reeder, 1995c); her shrill voice represented the obscenities from
women during exclusive fertility rites, which simultaneously repelled and excited men
(Reeder, 1995c); the Medusa image could represent the forbidden aspect of a mother’s
sexuality (Reeder, 1995c); and finally, Medusa’s facial expression was much like the
looking glass self which mirrored an onlooker expression of one’s own “positionality”
(Reeder, 1995c).
Woman as Social Construct
A culture’s image of a myth can change as it reflects different needs of the
dominant culture. Images of the Medusa procession may be minimal if non-existent in
traditional art history texts, and are often not tied together. Therefore, the discussion of
the social construct of Medusa (or of any other image) is often limited.
A proposal procession of the Medusa construct could include: Medusa as first
identified as a vegetation and life-abundant emblem (Frothingham, 1915). Then a
51
transformation began with Medusa in the form of a mask, which was either to ward off
the evil eye or was the evil eye itself. Next, the image developed a body with a face
that displayed a terrifying expression that turned people into stone. And finally, the
last stage of Greek gorgoneia represent Medusa with her tongue no longer sticking
out, she exposed no fangs, her eyes and mouth were closed (her gorgon voice gone),
and her face displayed resignation, which she therefore resembled more of an ‘ideal’
beauty than monster (Belson, 1980; Boucher, 2003; Wilson, 1920). Conceivably, the
progression of the life giving vegetation motif of Medusa to the docile beheaded
image represented the “Greek” view of nature (females) tamed by culture (males)
(Reeder, 1995d). Or that being a gorgon, the epithet for an “ugly, terrifying, repulsive
woman” is dangerous for a female’s existence (Simmons, 2002; Todasco, 1973, p. 45).
Still without text to interpret/influence meaning, the visual narrative of the
progression of the Medusa images may incite the viewer to come up with their own
form of resistance interpretation (Elkins, 2002). For the role as passive reader
transforms to role of inquirer when one observes and makes connections/meaning
(Sandell, 1991). However, since image constructions and progressions are generally
not part of the discussion in art history textbooks, student critical thinking and agency
about gender, image, and language go undeveloped (Elkins, 2002; Hilson, 1991).
Woman as Invisible
However, due to the cost of reproduction rights (Peers, 2006) as well textbook
publishers’ concern for profit (Barton, 2001); money can be the overriding
52
justification in the decision to limit female role representation in survey texts. While
the monographs and catalogues comprise more detail of the subject, and the survey
text is used for superficial coverage, all texts represent certain ideological stances
(Pajaczkowska, 2001). If, as does, the typical monograph and catalogue provide more
coverage of male artists and interests, then definite ideological stances are promoted
and shown value (Chadwick, 2007).
Woman as Visible
Unlike art history survey texts that offer superficial coverage of Greek art, the
catalogue of Ellen D. Reeder’s 1995 Pandora: Women in Classical Greece, contained
over 100 relics of female representation in Greek art. The Reeder (1995abcde) catalog
categorized according art pieces according to myths, epithets, and metaphors. Included
is Reeder’s (1995d) discussion how Greek artifacts revealed ancient Greek society’s
anxieties and expectations of women, which is not often a critical topic of discussion
in traditional art history texts.
Reeder (1995e) applied several methodologies to aid in the interpretation of the
art pieces: an anthropology method of structuralism in analyzing myth for
subconscious belief patterns, the use of historical analysis (social history) of ancient
texts which exhumed a gynophobic mind-set of ancient Greek culture, and for binding
with relevancy, the properties of poststructuralism were imposed for a critical eye on a
foundational culture of the Western world.
53
Reeder (1995d) considered the female images and role representations in
Greek art were representational of present day females. When considerations of Greek
art differ from conventional art history texts, in that it has the focus on women as well
as power relations, the dialogue, therefore, may more likely reach females and others
who are disenfranchised by traditional art history (Chadwick, 2007).
Each corresponding metaphor and relic pair was displayed and analyzed in
four sections of the Reeder’s (1995abcde) volume:

Section I. The ideal female: tall, sexy, silent, and invisible.

Section II. Metaphor: containers and confinement (womb, home)

Section III. Metaphor: wild animal, instinctive care for young, sexually out
of control, courtship as hunt, women as prey; must be tamed to meet
requirements of man-made institutions so as to not subvert society because
of wild harboring impulses.

Section IV. Mythic females as images of apprehension: The collective
anxiety that women could not be contained.
Woman as Provider
Like Ellen D. Reeder, Natalie Boymel Kampen has explored how gender roles
in a foundational culture of the West still have significance today. According to
Kampen (2002) gender roles cannot be studied without considering class; for the
image roles in art of ancient Roman women varied according to class. Typically, lower
class women venders had images of themselves at work on their shop signs, while
54
wealthy Roman matrons commissioned nude statuary of themselves in the image of
Venus (Kampen, 1981). And although Roman matrons contributed to their family’s
income, they wanted to distance themselves from work itself by creating socially
acceptable images reflective of their class status (Kampen, 1981). Characteristically,
traditional art history does not concern itself with the image roles of vendor women
nor the meaning behind the nude statuary of Roman matrons, and therefore, many
students will not learn of such art history “stories” of woman as provider (Elkins,
2002).
Woman as Artist
As in the case of the role as artist, the suppression of expression is employed if
it is at odds with the dominant culture. For example, conflict arose with the image of
women between the Church and some of the craft-workers, for many ecclesiastical
garments depicted Mary giving birth with assistance by her mother St. Anne a strong
and powerful midwife; the church patrons were displeased with the developments of
the message concerning unfeminine and “strong” female images and demanded
meekness in further portrayals of Mary and Anne (Parker, 2010). Although the virgin
is represented as a female role in art history textbooks, her depiction with Christ is
usually holding the infant, with sometimes a breast exposed, or holding the dying
Christ, but rarely do traditional art history texts offer the image of Mary in the struggle
of childbirth accompanied by her strong and powerful mother which was made by a
skillful female craft-worker.
55
Woman as Art Historian
The patriarchal “story” or narrative of art, avers art historian Kampen (1995),
maintains to create a universal linear art history that supports the role and evolution of
the male artist. In general, the traditional narrative in art history writing does not
convey to the reader that the storyline is more of a subjective account than a universal
truth (Elkins, 2002).
With a postmodern focus Kampen (1995, 2002) has utilized the methodologies
of feminist and queer theories to examine the concept of audience and the engagement
of diverse populations (based on the categories of gender, class, and sexual
orientation) created and viewed ancient Roman artifacts. However, such study of those
populations and their view and use of art; have often been ignored in traditional art
history and do not fit readily into the established format of conventional art history
surveys.
Kampen (1995) has employed historical analysis (the textual: inscriptions,
written records, and the visual: actual monuments or other artifacts) to better
understand the many complex Roman structures and how subset populations in their
efforts of maintaining their illusions of autonomy and tradition, responded to the
distant power of Rome. Kampen (1995) asserts that such a breakup of the empire
needs to occur with the focus of visual discourses involving multiple communities,
such as, provinces/urban, Latin/Gallic Roman, and gender--male, female, eunuchs, or
tribades.
56
However, there are those in the established art history community that do not
want to give up their exclusive “positionality” through the disuse of the traditional
narrative (Elkins, 2002). Therefore, the writings like those of Kampen (1995, 2002)
may be more likely (if at all) to be found in the course readings rather than in the
reference section in course survey texts. For such study of non-elite populations and
their view and use of art; have often been ignored in traditional art history and do not
fit readily into the established format of conventional art history textbooks.
Often art history’s “civilized” image is maintained through silence on art
theories that are contrary to the traditional narrative (Doyle, 2007). Therefore, it has
been noted that feminism is not greeted well inside the college art classroom (Wilson,
2008). Furthermore, finding a feminist critical art program within the university
system may still be challenging. For example, any remnants of the 1970s Feminist Art
Program with Judy Chicago (CalArts) at CSU Fresno has been virtually erased from
the art department, and students have reported feeling “gypped” and cut off from such
a phenomenal episode in women’s art history (Keifer-Boyd, 2003).
According to Keifer-Boyd (2003) teaching is a political act, but many art
historians have failed to accept the challenge to confront the status quo, power
relations, or “art image” interpretations and selections that effect women’s status
(Pollock, 1983; Wilson, 2008). Many art historians in order to gain their own
professional status, and therefore, not to become regulated to the economic or social
57
margins, will collaborate with traditional forces to suppress women’s art history
(Piper, 2001).
Woman as Victim
Often when females resist subordination and gender roles there is a backlash.
From the mid 19th to the early 20th century a time when women were gaining in
emancipation and agency (Watkins, Rueda, & Rodriguez, 1992) there was a profound
increase in art depictions of females in roles of dangerous man-eating beasts, such as
the siren a sweet voiced cannibal (Gouma-Peterson & Mathews, 1987; Heller, 1997).
Though the femme fatal images are found within the Western canon, traditional art
historians in art survey books rarely make the juxtaposition between the increase
productions of the images during the height of the first women’s rights movement
(Parker & Pollock, 1982).
Ghastly bloody scenes of rape and murder of faceless female nudes by highly
respected artists were said to be in response to World War I; however, some
researchers have stated that WWI may have exasperated feelings of fear and anxiety.
But the Lustmord paintings of violence against women were depicted by some of the
artists before the war began (Guoma-Peterson &Mathews, 1987; Tellini, 1998). For
many artists the sexual murder theme brought fame. One canon artist claimed during
an interview that if he did not paint the murders he would have committed them
(Tellini, 1998). Though extant traditional art history texts herald this artist as
58
provocative and include his satirical portraits of women, his Sex Murderer: Self
Portrait and his revealing interview are often omitted.
Berger (1972) divulged that most people have been taught that art conveys the
beautiful and made from the highest intensions. However, since art can influence
behavior and thought, it can be manipulative and very hurtful. Interpretations as well
as role representations can be most helpful when it brings awareness and selfknowledge that counters repressive forces (Garber, 1990).
Woman as Accommodator
In 1996, Mark Miller Graham analyzed the 10th edition of Gardner’s long
standing text and found the book permeated with patriarchal ideology. Miller
Graham’s (1996) analysis exposed Gardner’s editors’ daunting and incorrect
description of Caravaggio’s Jupiter and Io. While ancient texts account to Io as being
one of the first forms of female as object, Gardner’s editors inaccurately described her
as a “willing nymph” and focused on Io’s orgasm, rather on the ancient myth’s version
of female sexuality “regulated” by male “surveillance.” Miller Graham’s (1996)
interpretation resists the passive role modeled for female behavior through voicing
female object positioning. The two interpretations illicit different scaffolds for the role
of the audience: one as the observer to sexual compliance and the other as possible
victor in tearing down gender stereotypes.
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The Dichotomy in Art Labels
There are many labels to denote gender in art texts. Whereas role
representation may be the most visible, other types of labels are just as important.
Labels tend to highlight the underlying belief about the subject’s role in art as well as
who is in the role of the artist.
Art work by females is usually described in terms of the art work being dainty,
decorative, sentimental, or amateur (Chadwick, 2007). Labels that define female
subject matter and art are in antithesis to the work by males. Bold and magnificent are
labels given to male artists and their art work. Therefore, if a vase is labeled with a
bold style will be more likely attributed to a male artist, however if the vase is labeled
with an ornamental style it is more likely attributed to a women artist.
If a female artist’s subject matter is outside the general limits of dainty or
decorative, complications arise. For example, Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi is
generally included in most extant art history survey texts, but she is labeled first as a
“women painter” and second as a “rape victim” (Salomon, 1998). When art historians
discuss Gentileschi’s work her private life is always included in regards to her work,
and Gentileschi’s sexual past is often stated as the fuel for her bold and innovative
painting style (Salomon). Since her work is considered outside the femininity label,
Gentileschi has received double handed complements such as being given the rare title
of female genius but one who had “atrocious misdirection” (Parker & Pollock, 1982,
p. 21).
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Craft is another label often given to the artwork of females. Craft is also the
antithesis to high or fine art. During the Renaissance, a tactic that helped artists to
improve their social standing was to divide art mediums into two classifications: craft
(utilitarian) and fine art (art for art’s sake), such a division was also gendered and the
categorization has remained in its present form today (Cary, 1998; Elkins, 2001; High,
2001). The justification of the label describes craft as something that was made for
utilitarian purposes, although Cary argued that “fine art” is utilitarian in that it is made
with the specific purpose of upholding the values of the dominant culture while
generating revenue for the dominant class.
Craft objects are usually given the same descriptions as identified for female
art and are not usually mentioned in art history texts, unless the piece is magnificent,
such as a Greek vase painted by a male, then an exception will be made. Generally,
since craft can be purchased by ordinary people, the prices of craft pieces are
substantially lower than selling prices of fine art (Guerilla Girls, 1998). Therefore,
craft is associated with female work; women are paid less for their art/craft work.
Art also includes gender division by labeling it hard or soft as characteristic of
the materials used (Carson, 2001). For example, painting in oil is a form of the higher
status “hard” fine art, while watercolor is the version of “soft” art and therefore has a
lower status, just as sculptures in marble or metal are considered “hard” fine art and
cloth sculptures are not. The labels, hard or soft, not only characterize the texture of
the medium, but also denote who is most likely going to use that medium. Hard fine
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art is generally attributed to males and the labels defining the style of the piece will be
usually in the form of stereotypical masculine attributes, the same holds true for art
work that is considered soft and will be given stereotypical female attributes.
Therefore, soft fine art is not considered as serious as that of hard fine art.
Another label often used is anonymous. If the art work is labeled with
anonymous it was probably created by a female. Anonymous and female are often
used interchangeably (Banks, 1979). Prehistoric art will often be given this label.
Generally, Jomon pottery is thought to have been made by women (Stokstad, 1995),
but the title anonymous as well as the Jomon people are most readily used to identify
the potters of utilitarian and special ceremony Jomon pottery. Whereas cave paintings
are usually assigned to prehistoric artist/shaman and the pronoun ‘he’ as in ‘he
painted’ is often cited (Berman, 1999) even though the hand imprints of women and
children have also been found in the caves.
Text Devotion According to Gender
The type of roles, labels, and the amount of text devoted to the artist
demonstrates society’s value for that artist. Monographs are good examples of focused
attention and detailed examination of an artist that is viewed as very important. There
have been more monographs about male artists than female artists (Pajaczkowska,
2001). High status artists will become objects of study, less important artists will be
marginalized and cast in supporting roles with much less text in reference to them
(Cixous, 1981; de Beavoir, 1993). As less and less is written about the marginalized
62
artist, eventually the artist falls into the category of anonymous. According to
Pajaczowska, the historical record is not static but it is dynamic, adding and deleting
artists, “illuminated by illusion or obscured by fear” (p. 10).
The History of Art History by Kultermann (1993) detailed the lives and works
of a plethora of art historians. Beginning with the ancients and finishing with
postmodern foundations, the first identification of a female art historian was not to be
found until the seventeenth chapter which listed her name and her lifespan (Marguerite
Devigne 1882-1965). The imbalance of text according to gender was an overall pattern
found in Kultermann’s text. Many male art historians received up to several pages of
documentation, whereas, most female art historians only had their names listed with
strand of art history studied; feminist art historians were listed in a one sentence brief
noting that their work was pioneering and scholarly.
Though Kultermann (1993) was reticent in devoting text to female art
historians, his efforts to list and categorize much of the West’s art historians may be a
resource for further study where otherwise many of the female art historians would be
left in the void. However, one sentence is not enough for reader identification of the
subject (Banks, 1979). Just as the Polyclitus Canon (incomplete sentence and all) was
built upon by later generations into a concept of art, a stagnant listing of a name is
often not sufficient for meaning making.
Cixous (1981) recommended that females use their voice and mastery, to speak
and write about females, because if left up to males (or others) the subject of females
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will be either misrepresented or undervalued. Females must break out of their passive
roles that they adopted in the inculcation of their nothingness and begin to write about
themselves. According to Cixous, females and feminists (not all females are feminists;
not all feminists are female) need to be the writers of art history for gender inclusion
in art to exist.
Former CSU Sonoma instructors, Karen Wilson and J. J. Peterson (1979)
advised the writers of art history to search for reliable original sources, which may
mean diaries or other record keeping documents. By doing so, misinterpretations of
the material will not continue to be passed along, while new information will be
brought to light (Wilson & Peterson). With a larger body of information on women’s
art history, the art student will not have to piecemeal the history and will have a
greater number of quality resources for study.
The Importance of Gender Inclusion
General Exclusion
Epstein and Shiller (2005) reported that positive gender identity increased for
the female students in a women’s history class, while male students stated they felt
more at ease and less disconnected with a more traditional curriculum. General
exclusion causes certain feeling and bodily responses, no matter the gender (Kemper,
1993). Individuals or groups whose experiences, history, and perceptions have been
denied, distorted, or erased within the curriculum will often have feelings of low selfworth, inefficiency, disconnectedness, depression, retribution, and learned
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helplessness (Leistyna et al., 1996; Plutchik, 1993). Also, low status individuals will
have higher levels of cortisol or stress hormones, as well as restrict their participation
in the environment, more than higher status individuals (Höglund, Kolm, & Wineberg,
2001; Shors, 2004). Because the environment influences brain chemistry and structure,
low status individuals will have different brain chemistries and use their brain
differently than high status individuals (Diamond, 1988; Vertes, 2004).
Due to brain plasticity, certain counter measures such as resistance thinking or
“critical consciousness” can help stave the negative emotions of learned helplessness
and defeat (Leistyna et al., 1996; Vertes, 2004). However, a caring and enriched
classroom environment is a must, as well as appropriate teacher preparation for
instruction that is inclusive and therefore brain enhancing (Collins & Sandell, 1984;
Diamond, 1988). In optimum instruction, all students’ will gain in emotional energy
(status) that is positive for gender identity; this will be so because respect will have
been given to each students’ “selfhood” (Kemper, 1993). For students begin to view
themselves in the ways others treat them, so if treated with high regard, positive selfassessments and actions will often follow (Kemper, 1993).
Gender Socialization Differences
The school curriculum reflects the dominant culture’s values (Tsai et al.,
2007). In as such, textbooks carry authority and can be very powerful contributors to
gender identity with profound effects on cognition, behavior and self-image (Barton,
2001; Dutton, 2007; Tsai et al., 2007). Through observation and reinforcement, girls
65
learn the value of being polite, pretty, and passive, while boys will be encouraged to
become competent go-getters and doers (California Department of Education, 1988;
Dutton).
Textbooks, as well as the school culture, reinforces the epitome of the “ideal
girl”, who is generally popular, happy, smiling, helpless, dependent, blond/blue eyed,
stupid, superficial, and romantically attached to someone with status (Simmons,
2002). According to Simmons, the anti-girl, or the girl no one wants to be, is mean,
ugly, excessively cheerful, brainy, opinionated, pushy, strong, serious, artsy,
unrestrained, and professional.
Therefore, to fit the nice girl image, many female students by adolescence will
give up their “voice” and will be unable to express themselves authentically with
peers, authority figures, and in some cases themselves (Brown & Gilligan, 1992).
Girls learn that their voices are unimportant, a nuisance, and dangerous; and all
conflicts must be easily resolved, they also learn to persistently seek out the approval
of others, so much so, that their identity becomes what others tell them it should be
(Bingham & Stryker, 1995; Brown & Gilligan, 1992). However, as approval
disappears, so does one’s self worth and self-definition (Bingham & Stryker).
Consequently, because of the gender socialization process in our culture, many
females do not successfully pass through the stages of socio-emotional development
(Bingham & Stryker, 1995). As females learn dependency behaviors, avoid conflict at
any cost, and see safety in relationships, males frequently correlate relationships with
66
danger and victimhood with females (Pollack & Gilligan, 1982). Moreover, when
females see themselves as victims, the theme of recue becomes paramount in their
lives (Pollack & Gilligan). However, when females give up their voice and beliefs and
stop speaking authentically with themselves and others, they are less likely to
recognize potential dangerous situations, including abusive relationships, and are less
likely to be able to take care of their own needs, emotional or financial (Brown &
Gilligan) – therefore needing rescue.
Yet, when female students do not flinch in the face of conflict and are
outspoken about injustices received, they will often be labeled with stereotypical
epithets (Piper, 2001; Simmons, 2002). As students are not listened to, validated, or
given social support, depression or anger can arise (Brown & Gilligan, 1992), wherein
additional negative labels will be given (Leistyna et al., 1996). These external labels or
descriptors are often dehumanizing and a means to control and distance the outsider
(Collins, 1986).
Gender Gap Documentation
Students, both male and female, learn that females are not part of the
curriculum-- for they are practically invisible in the textbooks and classrooms, let
alone given preparation for leadership positions (Sadker, 2002). Although the gender
gap in school is well documented, the issues of race and ethnicity, rather than race and
gender, are on the forefront of receiving attention and therefore money for
improvement programs (Gritsak, 2009).
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Gender Inclusion
Gender inclusion, as a tenet of Feminist art pedagogy, addresses issues that the
traditional curriculum avoids: teaching both genders the skills valued in our culture
(independence, autonomy, expertise, ingenuity, responsible citizenship, and
leadership) that are needed to fully participate in our democratic society as healthy
adults (Bandura, 2001; Benham & Stryker, 1995; Fine, 2001; Simmons, 2002).
Skills of Independence, Autonomy, Expertise, and Ingenuity
Though the teaching of skills related to independence, autonomy, expertise,
and ingenuity are often reserved for the schools serving students of the affluent
professional or the executive elite classes (Anyon, 1981), broadening the audience to
include all art education students could be beneficial to students who otherwise may
not be encouraged to learn and use such skills (Simmons, 2002).
The student generated art inquiry is a feminist or gender inclusive approach
(Collins & Sandell, 1984; Noddings, 1992). With student generated art inquiry, the
students choose what is meaningful to study (such as, women’s artistic heritage, art’s
influence on regulating society); and therefore a more comprehensive and meaningful
study can develop rather than rote memorization of canonical artists (Collins &
Sandell; Sabol, 2000).
As student generated art inquiry begins with students ‘personal interests, the
art inquiry may start at the lower domain of the Bloom’s taxonomy of educational
objectives (rote memorization) and then move to the higher domains. With further
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interest in the art subject matter, the learner’s area of thinking is able to move to the
domain of organizing where the new material becomes part of one’s schema. From
there the student’s knowledge may reach the highest domain in which such “new”
knowledge (or creativity) has an influence on one’s actions and becomes part of a
characteristic of the learner (Krathwohl, 2002).
For in order for learning to be truly rooted, the learner must be emotionally
engaged with the subject matter, and this engagement only comes from personally
identifying with what is being learned, and since curiosity is part of the motivation
process, gender inclusion and student art inquiry are invaluable (Picard et al., 2004).
Skill of Responsible Citizenship
A gender equitable curriculum is a reflection of responsible citizenship. In
developing the aptitude for responsible citizenship, learning of the “soft skills,”
include “mutual respect, responsible freedom, self-evaluation, open cooperation,
sharing, and caring,” (Noddings, 1992, p. 158). Piper (2001) adds that the skills of
receptivity, honesty, dialogue, sharing of resources, and mutual support are needed for
meaningful work between artists, art dealers, and art critics. Sadly, these “soft skills”
are generally not a part of the school environment (Benham Tye, 2000; Noddings),
though such skills are demonstrations of higher order thinking (Krathwohl, 2002).
Skill of Leadership
Roles and skills are often not innate, but can be learned through instruction and
practice (Campbell, Campbell, & Dickinson, 1996; Dutton, 2007). However, as stated
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earlier, leadership training is typically reserved for the students in the highest
socioeconomic level (Anyon, 1981). Nevertheless, the leadership role can be
effectively modeled for everyone when art historians and teachers voice inequalities or
oppression about females in art. An example, even if it did not sway public opinion, is
of Linda Nochlin’s riposte on how gender images are either rejected or maintained
based on gender socialization (Meyer, 2007).
Nochlin displayed two photographs, Achetez des pommes and Achetez des
bananes, both depicted a nude wearing only shoes while holding a tray of fruit either
bananas or apples for sale and recorded public reactions to the photographs (Meyer,
2007). Meyer conferred that Nochlin revealed that society has commodified the
female body and referred the body parts to edible fruit that could be bought, sold, and
consumed; the female nude was a signifier to male domination and eroticism.
Nochlin argued that the audience showed little reaction to the photograph of
the female nude, because that type of image has long been in viewers’ consciousness,
while the male nude with his placid expression, evoked laughter and condescending
remarks to the ridiculousness of male objectification, because that kind of image was
not socially acceptable for a male (Meyer, 2007).
Nochlin demonstrated voice by not succumbing to the spiral of silence
(keeping one’s opinion quiet in face of opposition) by sharing her study and the
patronizing response to her work by a fellow respected art historian (Meyer, 2007). In
addition, this Nochlin “leadership” story addresses many of the phenomena students
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face not only through traditional art history curricula but in the general society: The
arrogant eye; commodification, and internalized oppression (see Definition of Terms
in this thesis).
It is important for females to see themselves in the curriculum. Gender
visibility or invisibility in textbooks contributes to one’s identity. Seeing oneself and
others in the curriculum provides opportunity for voice (authentic self-expression),
mastery (knowledge of own experience as well as others), identity (component of
agency), and agency (resistance to oppression) to develop and grow. The curriculum
can be a part of the process to nurture a healthy identity for the learner.
Conclusion
This literature review examined the history of gendered art education, the
feminist response to gendered education, the various analyses of current textbooks
including role representation, label identification, the difference of text coverage
according to gender, and the importance of gender inclusion in the curriculum. Art is a
cultural artifact which affirms and reinforces image and meaning making: what to
think and feel can be taught.
In addition, the overall conclusion gained from the literature validates feminist
art scholarship as important for female student agency, mastery, and voice. Feminist
art scholarship brings females to the front of the “curriculum” and “subject matter.” It
is important for students to see females in active roles in art history texts, as subjects,
artists, historians, and critics. For these roles serve as agency models to resist
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unhealthy oppressive behavior by others as well as in adopting behaviors and thinking
processes which contribute to a better sense of self. Gender inclusion in art history
texts can be a catalyst for reform in building nurturing, equitable, and conscious
identities and social structures.
However, the literature revealed that a vicious cycle is in motion: in order for
artists to be appropriately included in the survey texts the artists needs to be
considered great, but in order for the artists to considered great they need to be in the
survey texts. This cycle holds true for the inclusion of females in the curriculum: in
order for inclusion the student needs to be a part of the dominant culture, but females
are not part of the dominant culture particularly non-white or poor. Yet, further
evaluations of the literature bare a pattern where oppressive situations were either
stopped or somewhat palliated through conscious endeavors, struggles, and crusades.
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Chapter 3
METHODOLOGY
This chapter describes the methodology used in this study: Content analysis.
The methodology description is followed by the research design section. The research
design of this study includes four units of analysis. The units of analysis include the
text usage and visual content from the course textbook, the course syllabi, and the
catalog course descriptions.
Content Analysis
Content analysis is a form of quantitative analysis to measure counts of
specific items in a text or other forms of communication (Neuendorf, 2002). “Other
forms” include recorded speech and visual communication (fine art, clip art, maps,
etc.). Empirical inquiries have a long history and according to the written record date
back to the medieval Church looking for “dangerous ideas” in secular newspapers
(Krippendorf, 1980, p. 16). Content analysis has also been used to identify propaganda
or (half-truths) by usage of “glittering generalities” and stereotypes (Krippendorf,
1980, p. 16). An early American example of the use of content analysis is from an
essay published in The New Hampshire Spy (1787) where the counts of word usage
exposed a class-bias position of a particular party’s argument (Krippendorf, 1980).
The counts in content analysis are a systematic and quantitative method that aids in
objectivity for the study (Weber, 1985).
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The design methodology of content analysis begins with specific
predetermined questions the study seeks to answer, using preferably a random sample
from the chosen population, via objective instruments to measure counts of
observations to be transferred to data that is presented through numbers or statistics
that infer to the population (Cowan, 2004). Therefore, smaller samples of larger
populations can be reflective (Weber, 1985). Often, content analysis is described as an
objective technique to measure key categories in a systematic way; a main focus is to
provide a study that others can replicate and draw similar conclusions (Holsti, 1969).
However, validity (data representing phenomena) can be tested and measured;
objectivity may not be (Krippendorf, 2004).
Although word counts have been a hallmark of content analysis, this scientific
method has been propelled to include qualitative methods (Babbie, 1998). Often
postmodern scholarship in qualitative research methods has rebutted the idea that
complete objectiveness can exist; every researchers’ question or interpretation has in
some way been culturally derived and therefore subjective (Burn & Parker, 2003). As
theorists from different fields have their own discipline-based focus of inquiry;
interpretations of the inquiry will vary and none is more correct than the other
(Krippendorf, 2004).
Seeing that qualitative research questions and interpretations are varied, there
is no single meaning to a text. If that were so, all one would have to do is count the
number of instances of a particular word to find “the” meaning of the text, however
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context is important or reading between the lines and having the ability to read and
draw inferences (Krippendorf, 2004). Therefore, finding a meaning in a text
necessitates a reader/researcher response (Krippendorf, 2004) and whether or not
certain texts are deemed to contain dangerous ideas or propaganda depends on the
interpreter’s criteria or method. Thereby, qualitative research methods is a blanket
term for a complex, diverse, and ever evolving field which contain varies perspectives
giving varying meanings to texts (Punch, 2005).
Research Design, Procedure, and Analysis
Using content analysis, this study’s purpose was to provide an examination of
the textbooks, course syllabi, and catalog descriptions in a general art history survey
course taught in the CSU system. The art history course is a general lower division
survey course that covers art from prehistoric to medieval times and is offered at most
of the CSU campuses.
Course Textbook
From the examination of the course syllabi, the course textbook was identified.
It was found that only two textbooks were used in the lower division art history course
from this study. The course either required Gardner’s Art Through the Ages (2008)
with editors Fred S. Kleiner and Christin J. Mamiya or Art History (2008) by Marilyn
Stokstad. Only the text and images in the chapter on Greek art in each textbook were
examined in this study. The rationale behind choosing to examine the chapter on
Greek art was that Western civilization was fashioned on Roman foundations, and
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Rome itself was ‘Athenianized’. After sacking Greek colonies, the Romans adopted
the Greeks as their great “ancestors” and modeled education, art, and other social
institutions after them (Arendt, 1968). In addition, the gender roles that are found in
modern society can be traced back to the mores and gender expectations in Greek
society (Reeder, 1995).
Only art images containing human images were a part of the analysis. No
architecture unless the architectural elements depicted human figures, such as human
figures on friezes or pediments. The text for analysis in this study was located in the
main text and sidebars if applicable. Captions were generally not examined in this
study; captions are the identification information which gives the artist’s names, date,
material, and etcetera, below the images.
The descriptive coding process of the art history texts of the Greek chapter
began by creating three separate code sheets for male, female and mixed group images
for each text. By separating the images according to gender, gender visibility could be
determined. If the male and female images occurred within the same frequency,
gender equity could be confirmed for this portion of the study.
After separating the images according to male, female, and mixed gender
group images and then tallying the number of images according to image group the
image roles were determined. Each code sheet listed the image role and the number of
times it was portrayed.
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Group clusters were created to determine the most prevalent image roles for
each code sheet. The clustering matrix was employed to determine the severity or
pattern of repetitive attributes or themes. Clustering is a way to sort and lump
recurring themes to possibly determine significance in text (Krippendorf, 2004). The
grouping of two measures (attributes) that showed congruence formed a new cluster
group. The analysis of the clusters involved determining what kind of messages the
attributes represented.
After image role clusters were identified, text devotion was analyzed. This was
done through line counts according to gender. After determining how much text was
devoted to the gender images, word usage was listed, tallied, and then formed into
clusters to determine common or dominant themes in the text. The clusters of word
usage or image descriptors were also tallied and compared.
The labels, adjectives, or descriptors were coded within the text devotion. The
compatible criterion measures to identify traditional or non-traditional role
representation in the text were the Bem sex-role inventory (1974) which categorizes
adjectives according to commonly held characteristics of masculine, feminine, and
neutral behavior; Carinici’s (2001) identification of gender stereotypes; and the
Bingham and Stryker (1995) model of a socio-emotional inventory for females; as
well as the socio-emotional models from Aldrich and Tenebaum (2006); Kemper
(1993); and Plutchik (1993). All standards of measure were complementary while
increasing the adjective inventory for this study.
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All of the image labels were reviewed under the criterion measures and the
labels contexts examined. For example, image labels such as “striking figure,”
“mourning woman,” or “fellow warrior” could represent obvious or even neutral
gender roles, but the addition of analyzing the context or image description as a whole
proved important in deciphering meaning, gender role representation, and patterning
in the study. Therefore, since the qualitative approach is context sensitive (Punch,
2005), qualitative and quantitative methods became linked in this study. The items
were then recorded and coded as traditional or non-traditional gender roles as a whole
on the code sheets; for such roles are markers to agency or passivity. When the data
from each code sheet was imputed, the sums of each code sheet were compared for
gender equality in agency.
Further content analysis of the text prose was used to determine theoretical
foundations of the art history texts in this study. Since theories of art in art textbooks
can be determined through the use of specific terminology within the text, two of the
next three code items reflected conventional themes: Artistic genius and linear art
progression (Clark, 1975; Sabol, 2000). Segments of the text that discussed and
supported these two themes were recorded and counted, for conventional art history
themes support stereotypical images. The next code item assisted in determining
postmodern complexity. By complexity it is meant, that the text provides discussion of
gender with class or race that would: give voice and emotional/personal insight into
the lives of the female images portrayed, raise positionality issues, uncover underlying
78
messages of (ancient or modern) society’s power dynamics, and give sufficient
background knowledge to assist resistance/critical thinking.
The last two code items were areas of concern in postmodern and feminist art
theory:
1. passivity and activity (agency and voice) of the genders through image and
text, and
2. images of violence, especially violence against females.
Typically, misogynic cultures like that of the ancient Greeks will depict the ‘Other’ as
passive or as victims (Keuls, 1985). Therefore, the last two code items were
incorporated in this study. Both code items were listed and then tallied.
The analysis of image frequency, text devotion, attribute labeling, the use of
conventional theoretical methods (artistic genius and linear progression of art
methods) and critical methods (complexity) were used to identify the amount of
gender equity within the texts.
For the final analysis an evaluation was drawn from the data comprising of
gender images and text usage. The two texts were ranked in order from the highest to
the lower in the measures of gender equitable representation and visibility.
Course Syllabi
The course syllabi were gathered via several ways: attending the class,
emailing or calling the art department or instructors teaching the course at each
campus. Requests for syllabi were made to all campuses that offered this course, some
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of the campuses complied with the requests, while others refused to send a course
syllabus. If art department staff or faculty was contacted, this researcher was upfront
about the purpose of the request. Most of the art department staff and faculty that
agreed to send syllabi followed through. One art history professor contacted was
encouraging and interested in the outcome of the study, while another instructor
related how as part time faculty they do not chose the course textbooks for the syllabi.
However, some art department staff and faculty were adamant in their refusal to send
syllabi. One professor, who although refused to submit a syllabus and therefore not a
part of this study, did name the course textbook used at that campus and explained that
the other textbook author in this study was a racist. However, at the 11th of hour of this
study, another professor (from the same campus) sent a syllabus thereby enabling that
CSU campus to be included in this study. As a result, 10 of the 20 CSU campuses that
offered the particular art history course examined in this study were included based on
obtaining a course syllabus. This study applied content analysis to count/measure the
times the word “gender” was used in each syllabus. If the term gender was found, then
the course syllabus was found to be gender inclusive.
Catalog Course Descriptions
Along with the course textbooks and the course syllabi, the catalog course
descriptions were also incorporated in the study to understand the overall direction in
gender equity that some CSU campuses encompasses for this lower division art
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history course. The measure for gender inclusion in the catalog course descriptions is
the use of the terms “gender” or “men and women.”
Conclusion
Each campus was blindly numbered 1 through 10 and then was ranked from
highest to lowest in gender equity and inclusion based on the analysis of the
curriculum components: course textbook, course syllabus, and catalog course
description. It was the intention of this study to uncover and denote the supporting
messages of hegemony or emancipation in the curriculum components that students
may or will encounter in this lower division art history course.
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Chapter 4
FINDINGS
To recur, the purpose for this study was to examine aspects of gender
representation in a general art history survey course by analyzing the curricula: the
chapter on Greek art from the course textbook, course syllabus, and the course catalog
description, from ten of the twenty CSU campuses that offer this course. Although
there are twenty-three CSU campuses, three of the campuses do not offer the course
examined in this study. This study sought to determine the amount of gender equity
and representation in the curricula by recording:
1. how much of the artwork and text were devoted to females compared to
that of males,
2. the descriptors or labels used in relation to females and males,
3. the gender role representations as stereotypical or multidimensional
through the use of the theoretical terminology in text,
4. whether the course syllabi and course catalog description used the
terminology gender, men or women.
Using content analysis, this study was a quantitative dominant design that employed
qualitative applications (Punch, 2005) to determine gender equitableness in the
curricula examined. Thus this quantitative/qualitative content analysis study’s
intention was to establish the amount of gender equitable representation (visibility,
agency, and voice) within the respective curricula.
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Quantitative Content Analysis
Course Textbook
Gender representation was determined by studying the facets of image
representation and text representation including possible theoretical foundations found
in the textbooks in this study. These components will aid in this researcher’s
understanding of how much and what kind of gender representation are offered in the
textbooks. The textbooks analyzed in this study: Textbook A: Gardner’s Art Through
the Ages (2008) Kleiner &Mamiya (Eds.), and Textbook B: Art History (2008) by
Marilyn Stokstad. Although Helen Gardner, the original author of Gardner’s Art
Through the Ages has been deceased since the 1940s, new editions of the text are still
referenced to Gardner.
Textbook A--Gender and Image Representation
Table 1
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook A-1:
Percent of Images in Text According to Gender
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Gender of Images
Percentage of Images in Text
Male Images
60%
Female Images
23%
Mixed Gender Group Images
17%
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This study’s findings for image devotion in Gardner’s Art Through the Ages
(2008) editors Fred S. Kleiner and Christin J. Mamiya show that out of the total 33 art
images (male, female, and mixed gender grouping) males were depicted in 20 of them,
followed by 8 female images, and then by the mixed gender group images with a total
of 5 images found within the Greek chapter of the Gardner’s book. The images that
were solely devoted to the male gender equaled to 60% and the amount solely devoted
to female images was 23%, while the group images accounted for 17% of the images
in the text.
Table 2
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook A-2:
Number of Image “Roles” in Text According to Gender
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Gender Role Images
Number of Role Images in
Text
Male Role Images
11
Female Role Images
6
Gardner (2008) provided more male role images than female role images. In
other words, the male images depicted in the Gardner (2008) textbook included more
varied roles. Male role images were almost double the amount of female role images.
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Table 3
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook A-3:
Percent of Significant Image “Role” Clusters in Text According to Gender
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Significant Image Role
Clusters by Gender
Percentage of Role Clusters in
Text
Male Images
warrior 39%
Female Role Images
goddess 40%
athlete 22%
slave 30%
Although Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) supplied male and female
images that were depicted in varying roles, when the images were categorized, several
of the roles fell under the same category or cluster. For the male images, the warrior
and athlete role had the highest number of images. Comparatively, female role images
were mostly depicted in the goddess role followed closely by images that belonged to
the groupings of the destitute. The other two clusters/groupings for female role images
included the young virgin and the wealthy matron.
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Table 4
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook A-4:
Percent of Significant Image “Role” Clusters in Text According to Mixed Gender
Group Images
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Mixed Gender Group
Images
Percentage of Mixed Gender Group Images in Text
Male Images
warrior 37%
hero 16%
elders 6%
Female Role Images
mortal woman
42%
goddess
33%
demon
33%
god
6%
The mixed gender group art images contained, of course, both genders as well
as sometimes varied roles within each image in the text of Gardner (Kliener &
Mamiya, 2008). For example, some art images, such as on a temple frieze, may
include male (heroes), male (warriors), and a female (demon). The male images had
the higher variety of role clusters (not all were listed in the table), for the female
images in the mixed gender groups belonged to only three categories: mortal woman
(42%); goddess (33%) and demon (33%). Incidentally, two of the three images
contained in the mortal woman cluster pertained to death and mourning: one image
was of a young widow and the other was of mourning women at a funeral. The third
image of mortal women was of maidens under the leadership of male festival elders.
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Textbook B--Gender and Image Representation
Table 5
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook B-5:
Percent of Images in Text According to Gender
Stokstad (2008)
Gender of Images
Percentage of Images in Text
Male Images
49%
Female Images
25%
Mixed Gender Group Images
25%
For the Stokstad text (2008), the image count for female subject images was 15
in number; male subject images had a count of 29; and mixed group images totaled to
15 images represented in the Greek chapter in art. With a total of 59 images, 49% of
those images represented male subjects, 25% represented female subjects, and the
other 25% represented the mixed gender groupings in the artwork. Of the total images
some of the images were either duplicated, such as, one of the images was a close-up
while the other identical image was too small to reveal details (mixed gender image)
or the images were shown in both frontal and rear views (sets of three statues, all male
subjects).
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Table 6
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook B-6:
Number of Image “Roles” in Text According to Gender
Stokstad (2008)
Gender Role Images
Number of Role Images in
Text
Male Role Images
16
Female Role Images
8
Stokstad (2008) provided twice as many images with varying roles for the
male depictions than for the female depictions. Out of 24 varying image roles, 8
portrayed females. The male role images only include art pieces that contain only a
man or men. Likewise, the female role images (in this count) only refer to images that
are in pieces that only include the female image.
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Table 7
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook B-7:
Percent of Significant Image “Role” Clusters in Text According to Gender
Stokstad (2008)
Mixed Gender
Group Images
Percentage of Mixed Gender Group Images in Text
Male Images
warrior
50%
athlete 17%
king 17%
Female
Images
slave 44% goddess 28% maiden 17%
god 12%
youth 12%
matron 11%
The female role images of Stokstad (2008) include: (2) caryatid; (2) Kore; (6)
Goddess; (1) slave; (1) woman; (2) handmaid; (1) old follower of Dionysos; (1)
dancer; and (2) matron. This researcher categorized most of these image roles under
the destitute/slave cluster, as first, based on the ancient Greek social status of that
role/image, and second, on Stokstad’s (2008) own description of one particular image
portrayed.
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Table 8
Gender and Image Representation in Textbook B-8: Percent of
Significant Image “Role” Clusters in Text According to Mixed Gender Group Images
Stokstad (2008)
Mixed Gender
Group Images
Percentage of Mixed Gender Group Images in Text
god 25%
hero 8%
warrior 8%
parade marshall 8%
mourning men 8%
artist 8%
goddess 53%
monster 8%
Amazon 8%
mourning women 8%
artist 8%
giant 8%
Male Images
maenads 8%
Female Images
The mixed gender group representation in Stokstad (2008) contained artworks
that portrayed 25% of the male role images as a god while 53% of the art pieces
depicted female goddess images. Other “roles” portrayed in the artwork include hero
(male) and female monster, Amazons and warriors, mourning men and women, and
one female artist in a group of three male artists.
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Textbook A – Gender and Text Representation
Table 9
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-9:
Percent of Line Counts According to Gender Image in Text
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Line Counts by Gender
Percentage of Line Counts by Gender
Male Images
63%
Female Images
23%
Mixed Gender Group Images
13%
With each image the text gave a discussion about the art work. In the study,
each discussion was tallied through line counts. In the Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya,
2008) text, the line count averages were close in range: average line counts for male
depictions in art were 22, while the average line counts for the female depictions was
18 lines and the group depictions were 15 lines. However, two of the female subjects
in art were above the average for line counts (one image received 24 line counts of
discussion while the other 33 lines), yet, seven of the male subject art works received
higher than the average of the male group of 22 lines; for this above average group the
line count was 32 lines. Also the line count for the group average was not reflective
for the entire group, for two of the images received much higher line counts than the
other four images and therefore skewed the average
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As Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) chose to include a higher proportion of
male subject images than female and mixed group subject images, more text
discussion was also given to male image subjects as a whole. Of the wording
examined, 63% of the text of the line counts referred to the male image, while 23 % of
the line counts involved the female image, and mixed gender groupings received only
13% of the text discussion in the Chapter of Greek art in Gardner (2008).
Textbook B -- Gender and Text Representation
Table 10
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-10:
Percent of Line Counts According to Gender Image in Text
Stokstad (2008)
Line Counts by Gender
Percentage of Line Counts by Gender
Male Images
51%
Female Images
24%
Mixed Gender Group Images
25%
Comparatively, the line count findings demonstrated for Stokstad (2008)
provided 25% of the discussion of artworks focused on mixed group gender images,
while 51% of the discussion discussed male subject images, therefore giving the
remaining 24% of the discussion to women subject images, including the 1% of
discussion which listed female artists by name. The sidebar: Art and Its Context which
was given the sub-title: Women Artists in Ancient Greece included 11 lines of text and
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listed seven ancient Greek women artists. However, there was no sidebar that was subtitled Men Artists in Ancient Greece, though there was one that was sub-titled after
one particular male artist with 16 lines of text confirming his work and his authority as
an art master.
Textbook A--Gender and Text Representation
Table 11
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-11:
Percent of Attribute Cluster Topic—Clothing
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Attribute Cluster Topic Females and Clothing
Percentage of Discussion Related to
Females and Clothing
Women and Clothing
89%
Female/Eroticism/Clothing
55%
A noticeable portion of text discussion concentrated on the lie and effect of
women’s clothing in Gardner’s (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) text. As most of the text
discussion revolved around the female image’s clothing, 55% of such discussion
focused on the erotic qualities of the fabric. The range that Gardner (Kliener &
Mamiya, 2008) incorporated in the text discussion of female images and clothing went
along the lines of: drapery conceals entire body (peplos Kore, 530 BCE); folds of the
garment alternately reveal and conceal (pediment goddesses, 438 BCE); elaborate attire
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of the mistress (grave stele; 400 BCE); undressing Aphrodite became the norm (350
BCE).
Textbook B--Gender and Text Representation
Table 12
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-12:
Percent of Attribute Cluster Topic—Clothing
Stokstad (2008)
Attribute Cluster Topic –
Females and Clothing
Percentage of Discussion Related to
Females and Clothing
Women & Clothing
87%
Female/Eroticism/Clothing
23%
Stokstad (2008) also incorporated much discussion on the description of the
clothing of the female images in the text. Although the topic of eroticism and female
image was less than in textbook A of this study, Stokstad nevertheless entered such
discourse into the text and clothing was the most frequent part of the discussion
regardless of role (goddess; matron) of female image. When Stokstad discussed a
female image the topic of clothing was mentioned 87% while 23% of such discussion
related to eroticism.
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Textbook A--Gender and Text Representation
Table 13
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-13:
Percent of Attribute Cluster Topic—Clothing
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Attribute Cluster Topic –
Males and Clothing
Percentage of Discussion Related to
Males and Clothing
Men & Clothing
5%
Male/Eroticism/Clothing
0%
Areas of discussion difference marked male images from the female images.
The clothing of the male image was not found remarkable in Gardner (Kliener &
Mamiya, 2008). It was only mentioned as a comparative to the use with the female
image.
Textbook B--Gender and Text Representation
Table 14
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-14:
Percent of Attribute Cluster Topic—Clothing
Stokstad (2008)
Attribute Cluster Topic –
Males and Clothing
Percentage of Discussion Related to
Males and Clothing
Men & Clothing
14%
Male/Eroticism/Clothing
0%
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Stokstad (2008) in no way related eroticism and male image clothing, although
clothing description was mentioned in text discussion 14%. When Stokstad (2008)
incorporated the male image and clothing it was done in a way that reflected artistic
style or provided information about an occupation, such as the construction helmet of
the foundry worker in a vase painting. Stokstad (2008) used the treatment of clothing
in the text differently for the male and female images.
Textbook A—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 15
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-15:
Theoretical Foundation (Use of Artistic Genius) According to Gender
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Use of Artistic Genius by
Gender
Percentage of Use of Artistic Genius by
Gender
Male Images
55%
Female Images
20%
Mixed Gender Group Images
50%
The use of terminology such as artistic genius is generally considered a tenet of
conservative art history writing. Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) consistently
employed the use of “artistic genius” in regard to all of the images: male, female, or
mixed gender group images. However, Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) only
applied the artist as genius theme 20% of the time with female specific images.
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Textbook B—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 16
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-16:
Theoretical Foundation (Use of Artistic Genius) According to Gender
Stokstad (2008)
Use of Artistic Genius by
Gender
Percentage of Use of Artistic Genius by
Gender
Male Images
52%
Female Images
7%
Mixed Gender Group Images
43%
Stokstad (2008) utilized the artistic genius less than Gardner (Kliener &
Mamiya, 2008) in the text discussion of female art images. However, Stokstad (2008)
relied on this conservative precept for the male only images and mixed gender group
images somewhat significantly.
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Textbook A—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 17
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-17:
Theoretical Foundation (Use of Linear Progression) According to Gender
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Use of Linear Progression by
Gender
Percentage of Use of Linear Progression
by Gender
Male Images
65%
Female Images
30%
Mixed Gender Group Images
83%
Another signifier for conservative or traditional art history writing is the use of
the linear progression of art. Many images in Gardner’s (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
text were used as examples of how art improved over time. Often, one image was
compared with the preceding image, in this way Gardner (2008) could hail both the
artwork and the artist at the same time.
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Textbook B—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 18
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-18:
Theoretical Foundation (Use of Linear Progression) According to Gender
Stokstad (2008)
Use of Linear Progression by
Gender
Percentage of Use of Linear Progression
by Gender
Male Images
48%
Female Images
28%
Mixed Gender Group Images
36%
In the text of Stokstad (2008) the conservative theoretical tenet of linear
progression was also employed, though less so than Gardner (2008). However, the
combined use of this tactic – 48% involving male images, 28% female images, and
another 36% of mixed gender group images – add up to a large part of the text
discussion with a definite slant.
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Textbook A—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 19
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook A-19: Theoretical Foundation
(Use of Complexity(C)/Partial Complexity(PC)) According to Gender
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Use of Complexity by Gender
Percentage of Use of Partial Complexity
by Gender
Male Images
48%
Female Images
25%
Mixed Gender Group Images
33%
Critical complexity in text discussion relies on information about the art piece
which gives insight into the emotional/social complexities of the role portrayed. With
critical complexity in text discussion insight may be given to the sociopolitical or even
economic determinants as to why a particular art work is found in the repertoire of a
culture. However, the (PC) addition was given to Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
for underdeveloped discussion.
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Textbook B—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 20
Gender and Text Representation in Textbook B-20: Theoretical Foundation
(Use of Complexity (C) /Partial Complexity(PC)) According to Gender
Stokstad (2008)
Use of Complexity by Gender
Percentage of Use of Partial Complexity
by Gender
Male Images
34%
Female Images
13%
Mixed Gender Group Images
36%
The same held true for Stokstad (2008), much if not almost all of the text
discussion did not provide critical insights to either the emotional lives of images
portrayed, the culture that made them, or the culture who reveres them. To
recapitulate, by complexity it is meant, that the text provides discussion of
positionality issues of gender with class or race that would: give voice and
emotional/personal insight into the lives of the images portrayed. In addition, such text
complexity would facilitate a deeper understanding of Greek culture.
The narrative in the textbooks of Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) and
Stokstad (2008) did not attain complete complexity, that is, the texts did mention class
with gender but not fully expound the discussion, so partial complexity was added as
an item in this study. For example, there were two female subject images that came
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very close to demonstrating voice and complexity, though because of this researcher’s
own background knowledge of the pieces, it was difficult to give them the label of
complexity and voice. Therefore to recur, (PC) signifies that the narrative held a
potential for critical discussion, but complexity was not pursued, and hence reflected a
conservative dialogue.
Textbook A—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 21
Gender, Agency, and Voice in Image/Text Representation in Textbook A-21
Theoretical Foundation (Use of Active Roles) According to Gender
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Use of Active Role by Gender
Mixed Gender Group Images
Percentage of Use of Active Role by
Gender
active/male & inactive/female 83%
Applying the postmodern theoretical foundation of feminist art methodology,
the active doer and the inactive observer roles among the mixed gender group images
were recorded. To recur, passive behavior is often regulated for those with lower
status. However, images of passivity can be countered through text discussion.
Therefore, to determine active and passive roles, the images as well as the text were
examined for passive and active depictions/descriptors. Coding the adjective usage in
the text revealed that art image interpretations were stereotypical in nature. Meaning,
that although an image of a female may be in an instance of action it was either
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ignored, negated, or referenced to a male in the text. As mixed gender group images
denote gender dynamics (California Department of Education, 1988); Table 21
demonstrates that 83% of the mixed gender groupings carried the message of active
male and inactive female in either text or image.
Textbook B—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 22
Gender, Agency, and Voice in Image/Text Representation in Textbook B-22
Theoretical Foundation (Use of Active Roles) According to Gender
Stokstad (2008)
Use of Active Role by Gender
Mixed Gender Group Images
Percentage of Use of Active Role by
Gender
active/male & inactive/female 91%
According to Table 22, of the mixed gender groupings in textbook B, 91%
contained the active male and inactive female message. In addition, this study also
found that the active/inactive theme was pronounced throughout the textbooks in this
study. Often the verbs describing the male image were more varied and action
orientated (leaping, fighting, rapt concentration), while the female image was more
likely to be given the descriptors as stately, motionless, or holding a dreamy gaze. As
noted earlier (see Table 3 and Table 7) female slave and goddess images were
depicted with the most frequently, while the male images were of warrior and athlete
roles. Incidentally, warrior and athlete roles are generally held in higher esteem than a
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slave role, while the goddess could have the most power/influence/agency it is a role
that is unattainable and unrealistic for many. Like all roles in image and text, the
passive and active roles are dependent on the creator (artist/writer), and as in Tables
21 and 22 show most of the female depictions (regardless of image role) were placed
in the less agentic positions.
Textbook A—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 23
Gender and Violence in Textbook A-23
Percent of Theme of Violence/Warfare in Textbook; Percent of Violence Against
Females in Text or Images
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
Types of Images or Representations
Percentage of Violence
Total Images of Violence/Warfare
42%
Images of Violence Against Women
7%
Again applying the postmodern theoretical foundation of feminist art theory
this study examined the theme of violence. There was a relatively high amount of
violence and warfare within the Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) text. Though,
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya) had a low depiction rate of violence against women
images. In the Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya,) text, 42% of the images within the study
held the violence/warfare theme, and 7% of those images had text or an image that
blatantly depicted violence against females. Textbook A reported that the “demon”
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Medusa’s head was “severed by the sword” by the “Greek hero Perseus” (Kliener &
Mamiya, p. 61); although this is the most common version of this myth, it is
nevertheless violent and misogynic and was imputed in the violence against female
calculations. However, in the case of the caryatids of the Erechtheion, the text did not
delve into the symbolic meaning behind the “female statue- columns” and therefore
this researcher did not count that image as an image of violence against females.
Textbook B—Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Table 24
Gender and Violence in Textbook B-24
Percent of Theme of Violence/Warfare in Textbook; Percent of Violence Against
Females in Text or Images
Stokstad (2008)
Types of Images or Representations
Percentage of Violence
Total Images of Violence/Warfare
36%
Images of Violence Against Women
26%
In the final table of this study, Table 24 recorded the percentage of how
frequent the theme of violence/war (36%) occurred in Stokstad (2008) as well as the
percentage of text or images that blatantly depicted violence against females out of the
original (36%). Included in the 26% of text/images of violence against females from
the violence/warfare theme, was an image of the Amazons (female warriors) being
clubbed, stabbed, and pulled off a horse by male Greek warriors, though Stokstad’s
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(2008) commentary focused only on the artist’s style (artist as genius). Other
text/images (of the 26%) included the murder of the chieftain’s wife and the image of
a woman recoiling from a centaur fondling her breast; some art historians interpret this
action as attempting to abduct and rape, though not Stokstad (2008); “carrying off”
was used instead. Not included in the violence against female tabulation were the
caryatids and the action where Herakles stole (minor offense) the apples from the
“nymphs.” Although this researcher acknowledges that economic abuse (forcing one
to work, preventing one from working, or taking all of one’s monetary resources) is
typically a part of the violence against women, it is wherein which often minimized by
others.
Course Syllabi
This researcher found that none of the ten course syllabi reviewed of the
prehistoric to Medieval art course examined in this study contained the term gender
within the course syllabi.
Catalog Course Descriptions
This study found that no catalog course description of the prehistoric to
Medieval art course examined in this study contained the terms women and men, or
gender within the contents.
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Conclusion
This study found:
1. Table 1-Table 10 recorded that male images were more visible, had more
text devotion, and were depicted in more varied roles;
2. Table 11 to Table 14 identified a strong correlation among female image,
clothing, and eroticism, as well as differential treatment for the use of
clothing with the male image;
3. Table 15- Table 18 further revealed a high use of conservative and
traditional theoretical methodology; while
4. Tables 19-20 recorded that postmodern complexity was not attained;
5. Tables 21 and Table 22 recorded the active male and inactive female theme
was very pronounced;
6. Tables 23 and 24 showed a somewhat high percentage of violence with no
critical text discussion in the textbooks in this study; and finally,
7. that no course syllabi and no course catalog description in this study
acknowledged gender.
This evidence was enough for this researcher to say that gender equitable
representation and visibility will not be found using this curricula alone.
Although the textbooks in this study were almost identical in the art images
and the text analysis provided, Stokstad (2008) usually tended to quantitatively show
slightly lower rates of conservatism in the areas of image and text devotion to female
107
images (including women artists in image and text) and applied less of the artist as
genius and linear progression approach to the text analysis than the other textbook.
However, Stokstad also had a higher rate of negating women’s roles (including
women artists) and contained more images of women as victim than Gardner (Kliener
& Mamiya, 2008). Though the textbooks in this study were comparable in that both
provided stereotypical (sexist) art history writing where inline citations and chapter
notes were excluded giving the voice of the art historian ultimate authority, overall this
researcher found the Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya) text to be the (somewhat) more
gender equitable textbook in this study. As it happens, Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya)
was the most required course textbook in this study’s sample of course syllabi.
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Chapter 5
DISCUSSION, LIMITATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND CONCLUSION
Discussion
The basis for this study was to analyze the gender inclusion equity in the
curriculum of a lower division art history survey course (prehistoric to medieval art of
Western culture). This researcher applied quantitative and qualitative measures to
analyze the curricula in this study. The curricula consisted of the course textbook,
course syllabi, and course catalog description.
Course Textbook
Gender and Image Representation
Tables 1-8 of the study measured the frequency of images according to gender,
the number of “roles” in the images according to gender, as well as the most frequent
role depicted according to the gender in each of the two textbooks in this study.
This study found that the male image was depicted with the most frequency
and in the most varying roles. This finding was not surprising to this researcher since
typically traditional art history textbooks consistently provide more of the male image
and in the most varied images (roles) than the female image. However, depicting less
of the Greek female image was not due to image scarcity, but seemingly the agenda of
the textbook author.
Male role images in the textbooks of this study included: warrior, hero, god,
spear bearer (athlete), foundry worker, charioteer, hunter, reveler, horsemen, discus
109
thrower, youth, infant god, Alexander the Great, Persian King, athlete, common man,
battle trumpeter, centaur, foot soldier, mourning men, artist, civic leader, parade
marshal, chieftain, and giant.
Female role images in both textbooks consisted of Kore (maiden), goddess,
matron, old market woman, caryatid, slave, handmaid, dancer, old follower of
Dionysis, gorgon, Amazon, artist, mourning women, murdered wife, widow, and
young maenad. The study’s findings revealed that Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008)
depicted the goddess image most frequently while Stokstad (2008) had the female
slave as the most frequent cluster group image.
The Kore/Goddess image. The image role cluster in Gardner (Kliener &
Mamiya, 2008), textbook (A) from this study, was the goddess image. The goddess
image was substantiated early in the text of Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya); it began
with the image of the Kore/Goddess role. Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya,) juxtaposed
the roles or identity of the early grave markers as either a kore (young virgin) or
goddess. This is in contrast to one early male grave marker of a Kouros (male youth)
who was identified by his name as well as his “profession” as a war hero. Although,
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya) did state that the grave marker of a Kouros was
indistinguishable from a statue of a god, the Kouros image was much more
personalized than the image role for a Kore. By doing this, a pattern was being set for
the rest of the chapter, that the history of Greek art is the history of “real live” men not
caricatures.
110
Female Slave Image. The definition of slave is someone who is forced to work
for someone else. Most Greek households owned at least one slave (Adkins & Adkins,
1998; Freeman, 1996). However, there was another class in the Greek world (serfs or
helots) who were not slaves but were “bound” to work with no political or personal
rights (Adkins & Adkins). Those Greeks who did not own a plot of land, but needed to
hire their labor out were disdained, and considered to have a life only marginally
better than death (Freeman). Therefore, the slave, serf, helot, landless laborer, or other
undesirable were clustered into one group for this study. In the Plutchik (1993) model
of hierarchal behavior, low status almost guarantees feelings of inferiority and
accommodating behavior.
Both textbooks in this study stated in their glossaries that caryatids are
columns in the form of females and gave inconsequential mention in text, but only
Stokstad (2008) included two examples of caryatids. Caryatids are also thought to be
representations of the enslaved Caryaean matrons from the Persian Wars (Spivey,
1996). Though caryatids are not one of the three basic orders of Greek architectural
columns, they are, according to the Roman writer Vitruvius, important visual
representations of Greek history (Hershey, 1987).
Although Stokstad (2008) did not give background information to the symbolic
meaning behind the caryatid, this researcher tallied the “Erechetheid” caryatid images
as slaves. The “Erechetheid” type caryatids form the “Porch of the Maidens” of the
Erechtheion in Athens. Despite that the caryatids of the Erechtheion are sculptured
111
wearing clothes and jewelry demonstrating their matron (married) status before
captivity, the venue is nothing more than a stage for a public humiliation.
The second caryatid example, Stokstad (2008) labeled the pillars of the
Treasury of the Siphnians at Delphi as caryatids. Unlike the “Erechetheid” type
caryatids which carried their arms to their sides, the non-Erechetheid caryatids of the
Treasury had raised arms at the elbow and open palms. As a note, Spartan girls at
Caryae (called Caryatids) participated in a religious battle and sacrificial dance in
honor of Artemis Caryatis where at the climax of the dance arms were raised (Francis
& Vicker, 1983; Hershey, 1987). In addition, according to Hershey the philological
sources and etymological origins of the name of Artemis are associated with the public
display of criminals, butchery, and hangings; while the goddess required sacrificial
victims and religious chastity from her worshipers.
The non-Erechetheid caryatids at Delphi may be more precarious to classify
than the Erechetheid type caryatids, for the Treasury of the Siphnians is classified as
archaic, but this researcher tallied the non-Erechetheid type caryatids as slave image
roles. Simply, Francis and Vickers (1983) argue that the Treasury of the Siphnians
postdates the Persian Wars based on literary, iconographic, and stylistic evidence.
Consequentially, the caryatids of the Siphian Treasury convey Siphian loyalty to
Greece-- the winning side in the Persian Wars, denote public credence to their
irreproachable wartime actions, satisfy an overdue contribution to the Greek cause,
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and decree Caryae’s punishment (public display of criminal before enslavement) for
medism as justifiable (Francis & Vickers, 1983).
Two more counts for slave images went to Stokstad (2008) with the depiction
of a vase with an image of women at a fountain house. Provocatively, Stokstad
identified the figures on the vase as women and slaves. Based on the Greek class
distinction of women’s skin color (tanned skin as undesirable) and the Greek belief
that women allowed outside the home would soon engage in sexual liaisons (Freeman,
1996), the figures in the vase may have represented extremely poor, low status women
or actual slaves.
Another item that was counted as a slave (very low status) image role was the
dancer in the Stokstad (2008) text. Many professional dancers were hetaera (Adkins &
Adkins, 1998). A hetaera (symposium prostitute or courtesan) was rarely from a
citizen class family. Parents and siblings would not have allowed their female relative
to, as Stokstad put it, “twist sensuously” in front of others. According to Reeder
(1995) there were strict gender codes that did not allow citizen women to make eye
contact with even male relatives or to move their arms expressively (except in
exceptional circumstances). Furthermore, since it was a status symbol for a woman to
be depicted at leisure rather than working, the status of a dancer would have been from
the lower classes.
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Gender and Text Representation
Tables 9 & 10 reordered the measured text representation in line counts
according to gender. Tables 11-14 reflected the dominant attribute clusters found in
the textbooks in this study. Reflective of traditional art history writing, both textbooks
in this study gave much more text discussion (line counts) and more attribute
descriptions of verve to the male image than to the female image.
In the cluster of text attributes it was found that both textbooks in this study
focused on attributes of the female image in conjunction with the clothing of the
image. In addition, this study also found that along with the female image and
clothing, eroticism was a pronounced feature in the female image and clothing
textbook description. Clothing can be an ambiguous theme, although females are
equated with fashion and vanity much more than males (Berger, 1972; Carinci, 2001;
Gilman et al., 2002). Therefore, labels became important in deciphering the symbolic
meaning of themes.
The Stokstad (2008) text described the images of women in stereotypical
terms. None of the discussion that relied on the description of women and their
garments showed agency or non-traditional representation: Women as actors in the
world on their own terms according to their “positionality”—race, class, and gender
(Andermahr, Lovell, & Wolkowitz, 1997, p. 13). For example, most of the images
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) and Stokstad (2008) included in the surveys were
of women usually standing that showed little movement save their garments. When the
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text described movement along with clothing it had a stereotypical twist, such as,
when the goddess Nike was adjusting her sandal “the figure bends forward gracefully,
causing her chitron to slip off one shoulder…one of the most discreetly erotic images
in ancient art” (Stokstad, p. 145).
However, when this study examined whether the male image was considered
in this way, it was found that it was not. A different approach was applied to the male
image than the female image. The small amount that the male image was referred to
its clothing was always in relation to what he was portrayed “doing” or part of his
uniform, such as, the ancient foundry worker wearing what looked like a modern day
construction helmet. Or the many examples given by Stockstad (2008): “helmeted and
armored Persian leader” (p. 155), the dying warrior with “twisted neck ring”
struggling to get up (p. 160), and finally the Charioteer with “his long robe…epitome
of elegance…whole garment seems capable of swaying and rippling with the
charioteer’s movement…swelled veins in feet…seem to have been cast from molds
made from the feet of a living person” (p. 131).
If body parts were mentioned in the discussion they gave an image of strength
rather than of sexual object. This study found that when male subjects bore
descriptions that involved clothing it was not in any way derogatory, but were cast in
roles of action or heroism -- stereotypical roles for males.
In addition, this researcher viewed the male roles as more attainable and
realistic than the roles exhibited for women, such as the goddess role or even more
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enviable than that of the old market woman or dancer (prostitute or courtesan). None
of the male images that included clothing attire as part of the textbook narrative were
sexually objectified. And in no way did either textbook in this study relate to the erotic
qualities of the male image with or without its clothing.
This researcher found it disappointing that in this day and age that clothing was
used as a means to express male occupation/ action while the emphasis for the female
role was with the erotic quality of her clothing. This researcher thought it strange if
not dangerous, that the textbooks in this study would provide text that was
disadvantageous to students’ development. Basically, the textbooks in this study were
reinforcing gender roles through the socialization processes of image and text. Gender
roles are typically stereotypical, learned through observation and reinforcement, and
tell us what our cultural expectations are for male and female behavior (Bem, 1974;
Bingham & Stryker, 1995). So not only are the female students observing that clothing
and eroticism are important aspects to the female role, but the male students are also
learning and equating this with feminine character as well. Furthermore, this is not the
only area where eroticism of the female image is reinforced, for it is found everywhere
in our lives, although fine art may be one of the elitist areas of visual culture.
Therefore, it is so important that at least a college textbook does not perpetuate female
objectification.
According to the Bingham & Stryker (1995) model, too many females develop
with no boundaries or self-defined limits (which can get them into trouble); female
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identities that are based on the coyly erotic perfect female will often dismiss behavior
and thoughts contrary to such an identity; and many females do not develop a hardy
personality and move successfully through the stages of socio-emotional development.
This researcher thought it inappropriate that the textbooks in this study provided text
that reinforced if not contributed to the passive behavior of self-objectification in
female students, rather than provide counter-discourse in the text.
For even the writings of Charlotte Perkins Gilman of over 100 years ago
conveyed the message that the preoccupation of female clothing and eroticism
(attracting a mate for one’s sustainability) was socially constructed and not a natural
phenomenon (Gilman et al., 2002). Life necessitates that both genders develop
autonomy not reduction to a sexual object.
This researcher discovered that there is a longstanding tradition in Western art
history writing to accentuate eroticism specifically in Greek art. The textbook authors
in this study ignored the historical record if it did not coincide with modern
conceptions of conventional representation. For example, throughout both textbooks
examined in this study ancient sources were cited or Greek myths were retold in
relation to the art; but both textbooks were selective in the “story” they told. For
instance, Stokstad (2008) discussed a pair of earrings depicting the youth Ganymede
in the clutches of an eagle (Zeus). However, Stokstad in no way referred to the Greek
myth that corresponded to the earrings’ image: the bisexual Zeus, in his desire for the
young man, transformed himself into an eagle and carried off the youth. The lack of
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discussion involving the male gaze of the male reflects not so much the ancient view
as it does the reflection of the society examining it.
Themes of Theoretical Foundations
Tables 15- 24 are in this final section where the tenets and frequency of
traditional and nontraditional theoretical foundations were reordered. To repetend,
often a patriarchal culture will tell a narrative where the male image is the active doer
in the most prominent position, while the female image is cast in a supporting role
(California State Department of Education, 1988; Carinci, 2001; Plutchik, 1993). This
study examined the tenets of traditional art history writing: artist as genius and linear
progression; as well the concerns of non-traditional art history writing: critical
complexity in the art analysis, active doer inactive observer, and violence against the
‘Other’ (California State Department of Education; Watkins et al., 1992).
Artist as genius. The artist as genius in text is a conservative art history writing
tradition. The male artist as genius is a spinoff of the “great men” theory that
elucidates that history is made through the impact of great men or heroes. Table 15 of
this study depicted Gardner’s (Kleiner & Mamiya, 2008) use of this theoretical
foundation and Table 16 represented Stokstad (2008). Over half of the art of a male
image denoted that the artist was a genius in both textbooks; but both showed
significantly less use of the artist as genius of artwork that contained a female only
subject, most of the text was on the erotic qualities of the piece, and finally the mixed
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gender group images received a considerable amount of text devotion concerning the
artist as genius theme: Gardner 50% usage and Stokstad with 43%.
Even if the ancient artist was anonymous, art historians will give a title/name
as well as gender to an artist when the piece is recognizable by style. For example, the
male pseudo-named artists the Achilles Painter (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) and the
Pan Painter (Stokstad, 2008) were included in the textbooks in this study based on
their “masterful” style. In addition, several other expert male artists and architects
were listed by actual name as well as work attributed to them in substantial amounts of
text in both textbooks.
While Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) ignored the subject of Greek
women artists, Stokstad (2008) negated their contributions with only as much text as it
took to accomplish the negation. Moreover, as Stokstad mentioned the topic of female
artists three times in the chapter of Greek art, never was the genius theme employed to
the women artist.
For example, contained in a sidebar was the analysis of the only image of a
women artist (A vase painter and assistants crowned by Athena and Victories),
Stokstad (2008) stated that the focus of the piece was not on the “isolated” and
“excluded” female artist, but the focus was on the other male artists in the composition
who won an arts competition.
Stokstad (2008) then equated the exclusion of the female artist in art
competitions to the exclusion of the female in ancient Greek sport competitions. This
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argument offered by Stokstad was somewhat unconvincing to this researcher, since
maidens were allowed to participate in the games of Hera and some female athletes
competed against males (Dillon, 2000). Also, as Sarah Pomeroy attested in the classic
Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, -- also cited in Freeman (1996), women
entered horses in the Olympic Games, including an early 4th century example of a
woman’s team from Sparta which won a chariot race at Olympia.
Though, Stokstad (2008) did offer “another interpretation” of A Vase Painter
and Assistants Crowned by Athena and Victories that viewed the sole women artist as
so secure in her position as a “Master” sitting on the sideline while her journeymen
accepted the awards. This researcher found this to be an unconvincing argument in
comparison to the first interpretation which had supporting “evidence.” Perhaps this
approach used by Stokstad was an attempt to include a “feminist approach” to the text
while further validating conservative art history writing. Also, it was found in this
study, that Stokstad only offered different interpretations of a piece if the subject
matter involved a female image or female artist.
In the same sidebar text, Stokstad (2008) also mentioned ancient Greek women
artists documented in the writings of Pliny the Elder. Nothing but the names of the
women artists were mentioned in Stokstad. This researcher found the use of a name
list was a rather scant way to include ancient Greek women artists in the text. Again,
no sources were cited in the body chapter and this researcher could not find a match to
any translations of Pliny in the bibliography in the back of the book. This is mentioned
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because in the Eugenie Sellers and Miss K. Jex-Blake’s 1851 translation, gave not
only the names, but included three artists with their fathers’ names (two women artists
were daughters of artists) and one women artist was mentioned with a male pupil’s
name. In addition, Iaia of Kyzikos had “such merit” for her paintings “that they sold
for higher prices than those of Spoholis and Dionysios, well known painters whose
works fill our galleries” (Sellers, 1975). Such additional information could have
positive effects on the female reader’s self-image as well as increase one’s knowledge
of art history.
In addition, in the same sidebar on women artists, Stokstad (2008) referred to
the daughter of a painter named Helen who may have painted the prototype for the
famous Alexander mosaic; Stokstad then directed the reader to another section of the
textbook for more information. From this referred section, Stokstad included that Pliny
the Elder listed Philoxenos as the painter of the prototype, and that a “new” theory
alleged it was Helene of Egypt. But the Stokstad text did not give privy to the reader
as to which art historians supported this new theory. It seemed to this researcher, that
by Stokstad stating that one artist (the male) was identified by an ancient authority
while the other artist (female) was identified by a new unsubstantiated source,
credibility was given to the former.
The general consecration of Philoxenos as the painter of the original painting
which the Alexander mosaic was based upon was rooted in the arguments of the 19th
century writings such as of Adolf Michealis and the subsequent writings of Heinrich
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Fuhrmann (Titchener & Moorton, 1999). Pliny the Elder (CE 23/24—79) a Roman
writer wrote “Philoxenos of Eretria, who painted for king Kassander the battle
between Alexander and Dareios, a picture second to none” (Sellers, 1975, p. 143) and
was thought to be a better source than another ancient writer, Ptolemy Chennus, also
mentioning a painting of the same scene.
According to Photius, a 9th century Byzantine Patriarch, it was Ptolemy
Chennus, a Greek grammarian (circa 98- 138 CE) who wrote “(Helen) was the
daughter of Timon the Egyptian; she painted the battle of Issus at the time she was at
the height of her power; the picture was displayed in the Temple of Peace under
Vespasian” (Pearse, 1999). However, traditionally, Ptolemy Chennus has been
considered to write alternative versions of events and was discounted by Photius: “this
writer is somewhat empty and excessively fond of braggadocio and is lacking in
urbanity” (Van Hook, 1909, p. 189); including Fuhrmann: “Ptolemy “Chennus” (“the
Quail”) was disbelieved and “a purveyor of fiction” (Titchener & Moorton, 1999, p.
42). Perhaps this new theory in the Stokstad (2008) text was based on the writings of
Ptolemy Chennus, but one will never know without inline citations or footnotes.
In addition to inline citations and footnotes, source criticism is always
important, in particular when the sources are ancient writers, due to the high
probability that primary sources were not used or faulty translations occurred,
therefore, the sources may not be entirely reliable. Though Stokstad (2008) stated in
the text’s preface “…the first goal of an introductory art history course is to create an
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educated and enthusiastic public…” (Stokstad, p. x), this researcher believes that the
textbooks in this study missed the mark. Irresponsibly, neither course textbook in this
study provided source criticism or what is known as the art term Quellenforschung
(Linderski, 2003) to model the application of critical inquiry and consciousness
regarding the sources used in art history writing (Leistyna et al., 1996).
Therefore, this unintentional, but irksome finding --that the textbooks in this
study lacked inline citations and source criticism represents more than just a discovery
in poor modeling in essay writing for students, but rather this type of ‘survey’ writing
is hegemonic in that it promotes exclusivity in knowledge while sustaining the status
quo (Leistyn et al., 1996). Therefore, in this way, the texts in this study were able to
employ the (male) artist as genius approach, include tokenistic scholarship on ancient
women artists (textbook B only), and avoid precursory to critical art history discussion
without debate.
In the final example of artist as genius in relation to Greek women artists,
Stokstad (2008) in relating a legend of the Pausain borders in Greek art, included how
the “foremost” painter Pausias challenged the “widely praised floral designer” Glykera
to an artistic competition, where the genius Pausias was declared the winner.
Judiciously, Stokstad made the text comment: “not surprising, although perhaps
unfair” the lavish flower borders reflecting the floral arrangements made by those like
Glykera are referred to as Pausian borders not “Glykeran” (Stokstad, p. 156). Along
with the legend recount in the text, an image of a mosaic possessing a Pausian border
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“prominently signed by an artist named Gnosis” (Stokstad, p. 156) was provided.
Although, this researcher can appreciate that Stokstad gave background knowledge
(the legend) in order for the reader to take notice of the Pausian border in the image,
the legend was a form of conservative narrative which promoted the archetype of the
classical artist (exemplified male artist) and genre (“fine art” epitomized; “craft”
annulled).
Linear art progression. Table 17 and Table 18 recorded this study’s tally of the
conservative method of linear art progression within both textbooks in this study.
Typically, the linear art progression approach promotes only one view of art (that of
the dominant culture) and justifies its existence on the basis that the art of the
dominant culture becomes more advanced and improves overtime while the art of the
‘Other’ is inferior. With linear progression, whether the art is an “idealization” of
Alexander the Great or has the “truthful realism” contained in the Old Market Woman,
the art demonstrates the skill and mastery of that time period while perpetuating the
‘Man as the Ideal’ myth.
In addition, the linear progression of art is viewed as part of a cyclical event.
As the iconic Winklemann wrote in 1764, the art cycle starts as dormant, then
develops out of necessity which progresses to a full bloom of beauty, followed by a
superfluous period until it collapses and decays (Irwin, 1972). This cyclical view of art
may have ultimately derived from Xenocrates of Athens (396-314 BCE) and passed
on through the Renaissance to the moderns (Kultermann, 1993). A tenet of linear art
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progression includes that art reflects the stages of the culture that produced it. For
example, Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) communicated how the Greek dark ages
was a time of where even reading, writing, cutting of masonry, and painting frescoes
was lost, but with military and cultural advancement came greater artistic technical
skill and imagery.
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) utilized the linear progression of art
approach in 65% of the text discussion of the male image, while Stokstad (2008) made
use of this approach in 48% of the discussion pertaining to the male image. The
percentage rate for use of the linear art tradition was somewhat less for the female
image: 30% for Gardner and 28% for Stokstad. On the other hand, the Gardner text
jumped in percentage for the mixed gender group image at 83% while Stokstad only
included 36 % of text discussion of the mixed gender group image.
Both textbooks in this study charted the steady linear progression of Greek art:
(a) Geometric period stick figures; (b) eventually came the frigid but full bodied
figures of the early Archaic period; (c) followed with the more lifelike but rigid bodied
statuary in the late Archaic; (d) as time progressed the images became more lifelike
and ideal (calm reserve); (e) until reaching the culminating Hellenistic era where the
human image was life like and embodied or evoked intense emotion, wherein which
was the last stage of Greek art before moving onto the next chapter, Roman art. Often,
one image was compared with the preceding image in order to demonstrate
progression.
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With the female image in particular, the progression of realism and intensity
was incorporated in the overall attractiveness or in some cases the ugliness of the
image. For example, beginning with the first image (Greek art) to the last image, the
textbooks followed a linear progression in realism with the focus on features
stereotypically associated with women. For example, first, the female stick figure
image had “breasts emerging beneath their armpits” ([Gardner], Kliener & Mamiya,
2008, p. 56); then, the Peplos Kore wore a garment which concealed entire body but
“the sculptor rendered the soft female form much more naturally” and “extended left
arm was break from Egyptian statues” ([Gardner], Kliener & Mamiya, p. 58); next,
“The sculptor carried the style of the Parthenon pediments even further and created a
figure whose garments cling so tightly to the body that they seem almost transparent”
([Gardner], Kliener & Mamiya, p. 74); and finally, “The undressing of Aphrodite
became the norm, but the Hellenistic sculptors went beyond Praxiteles and openly
explored the eroticism of the nude female form” ([Gardner], Kliener & Mamiya, p.
83).
By comparison, the textbooks in this study showed the progression of art with
attributes given to the male image as well as the artist denoting strength, leadership,
and technical skill. Such “positive” attributes or characterizations are generally given
to only the male characters in stereotypical or gender-biased prose (Carinci, 2001). For
example, (Heracles wrestling Anataios by Euphronios) “A revolutionary new
conception of what a picture was supposed to be” ([Gardner], Kliener & Mamiya,
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2008, p. 63); (Kritos Boy) “New way to stand; rejection of the rigid and unnatural
Egyptian pose” ([Gardner], Kliener & Mamiya, p. 66); (Alexander Mosaic)
“Philoxeno’s panting is notable for its technical mastery of problems that had long
fascinated Greek painters. Even Euthymides would have marveled at the rearing
horse…” ([Gardner], Kliener & Mamiya, p. 80).
As stated earlier, the linear progression of art is a tenet of the patriarchal
narrative of art and supports the role and evolution of the male artist (Elkins, 2002;
Kampen, 1995). While most people need a beginning, middle, and end of a topic for
better understanding (Arnold, 2004); narratives tend to convey to the reader that the
storyline is an ‘objective’ universal truth rather than a subjective one (Elkins, 2002).
From the beginning to the end of the chapter of Greek art in both textbooks in this
study the linear progression of art was utilized to promote gendered roles in the male
artists and the male and female images in the art. How different the story of art would
have been if either textbook in this study drew attention to Alexander the Great
missing his mark when throwing a spear in the Alexander Mosaic (Keuls, 1985);
disclosed that depending on the viewer’s location to the sculpture, Aphrodite was
enjoyed by homosexual and heterosexual males (Spivey, 1996); or that the ‘earlier’
styles in Greek art could still be found in the later periods (Boardman, 1996).
Postmodern complexity. Table 19 and Table 20 recorded the postmodern theme
of complexity, which is a tenet of feminist theory. To recapitulate, by critical
postmodern complexity it is meant, that the text discussion relays information about
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the art piece which gives insight into the emotional/social complexities of the role
portrayed and may include insight to the sociopolitical or even economic determinants
as to why a particular art work is found in the repertoire of a culture.
The textbooks of Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) and Stokstad (2008) did
not attain text complexity. However, since elements of complexity were found, for
example, class with gender or emotional insights may have been mentioned, but were
not fully expounded; therefore, partial complexity was added as an item in this study.
Though this researcher followed strict adherence to the definition of critical
complexity during the coding procedure, the partial complexity component had a
wider breadth of acceptance to discussion that ranged from near complexity to almost
dearth but having potential. Therefore, while 0% complexity was found in both
textbooks of this study, Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya) attained partial complexity in
48% of male images, 25% of female images, and 33% for the mixed gender group
images; and Stokstad achieved partial complexity discussion in 34 % of the male
images, 13% for the female images, and 36% for the mixed gender group images.
Although complexity in the textbooks in this study was never attained, by
happenstance, both textbooks in this study gave partial complexity to the very same
images.
This study found that the best example of critical complexity representation
was the discussion on the Old Market Woman (OMW) found in the Gardner (Kliener
& Mamiya, 2008) and Stokstad (2008) texts. Separately, this researcher found that
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each text appeared to give voice or insights to the personal and emotional life of the
image. Read together, this researcher could distinguish that the textbook analysis
provided more of an undisclosed ‘interpretation’ of the artwork.
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) used the descriptors of “aged, ugly, and on
lower rung of the social order” to describe the OMW (p. 84). Additional descriptions
that provided analysis of the personal and emotional dimensions of the subject
included “haggard old women bringing chickens and a basket of fruits and vegetables
to sell at the market,” “her spirit broken by a lifetime of poverty,” “she carries on
because she must, not because she derives any pleasure from life” (Gardner, Kliener &
Mamiya, p. 85). Through the text descriptions of the image, Gardner (Kliener &
Mamiya) provided a picture of a person run down through poverty and hard work.
Under the heading of The Multicultural Hellenistic World, the OMW was
discussed in the text of Stokstad (2008) where general information was given on
varying opinions about what the OMW. With no source citation, Stokstad stated that
some believe the sculpture it is an old peasant woman” and then added that that
although her dress hangs in “a bunched and untidy way” it “appears to be of an elegant
design and made of fine fabric” (p. 164). Stokstad went on to mention that because of
her hair resembled “some semblance of a once-careful arrangement” and her “sagging
jaw, unfocused stare, and lack of concern for her exposed breasts” has caused others to
ascertain that the subject was a representation of “ an aging, dissolute follower of
…Dionysos on her way to make an offering” (p. 165).
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Stokstad (2008) enlisted the character trait of dissolute (debauched, immoral)
to the personal identify of the subject as a follower of Dionysos. This researcher found
similarities between Stokstad’s inclusion of the hypocritical label of dissolute for a
woman who had supposedly participated unabashedly in sexual rituals and the
misogynic view of women and sex.
Moreover, the current image of the OMW in both Gardner (Kliener &
Mamiya, 2008) and Stokstad (2008) provided the ‘damaged’ version. This ‘damagedauthentic’ version of the OMW looks very different from the ‘restored’ version that
was used 30 years ago in textbooks. The OMW in the current textbooks has parts of
the sculpture missing, such as, a breast, both arms, part of the side of the face, and the
nose. To this researcher the ‘authentic’ version with the chunks of missing statuary
leave a rough service that gives of a much older woman than the ‘restored’ statue; and
the ‘restored’ (intact) version depicted a woman much less decrepit with a more
focused and determined “look” in her eyes. The textbooks in this study never
mentioned the ‘other’ version nor did they as a whole move beyond providing a
stereotypical representation of a woman past her prime and therefore worth.
Coincidently, Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) placed the Venus de Milo
image directly next to the OMW, which gave a contrasting view of a young seductive
female with the old wrinkled one. Even Stokstad (2008) presented the OMW on the
opposite page of “the veiled and masked dancing woman” that “twists sensually” (p.
164) and stated that the OMW was an antitheses to the erotic female image. Gardner
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(Kliener & Mamiya) explained that although unflattering images were represented on
Classical pottery, for example, images of the older, toothless, saggy breasted
prostitutes amused symposium goers (Kuels, 1985), it was the Hellenistic period that
made them in monumental size.
Though such stereotypical images are a reflection of a misogynic culture, the
text usage was a deciding factor in this study’s claim that the complexity of the art
subject was not employed. As a whole, this study found that the perpetuation of
stereotypical image representation without critical text discussion was a constant.
Furthermore, although elements of complexity were maintained, rudiments of
patriarchal ideology were paramount in text usage and image placement.
Therefore, this researcher decided that Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) was
somewhat closer to complexity than the Stokstad (2008) interpretation of the OMW.
As stated earlier, this researcher initially thought that both textbooks in this study
provided the image with a complex role that gave insights into the subject’s personal
thoughts, life, and situational identities—race, class, and gender. That was until
Stokstad used the term dissolute in the description, then the subject’s role changed into
the stereotypical prostitute role. It was there that Gardner’s (Kliener & Mamiya)
discussion of the OMW was deemed less hegemonic than Stokstad’s (2008).
As an aside, there is a tradition in art history (and in the writings of Nietzsche)
to signify the shadowy side of life (orgiastic celebrations, clairvoyance, irrationality,
paradoxicalness: pain and pleasure; terror and ecstasy; love and hate) with Dionysos
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and correlate Apollo (the epitome of Classical Greek art and spirit) with all that is
rational and detached: science, medicine, law, education, colonialism, and calculated
foresight (Arnold, 2004; Boardman, 1996; Hershey, 1987; Shlain, 1991). But Stokstad
(2008) never mentioned the Dionysos/Apollo paradigm nor openly discussed the
iconology and iconography of anything related to Dionyios, but rather possibly hinted
at the relation-- hence the word choice of dissolute for the OMW.
Gender, agency, and voice. As a postmodern (feminist) theoretical foundation
principle is to evaluate the relationship roles among people, Table 21 and Table 22
documented the total percentages of the active doer and the inactive observer themes
found in the mixed gender group images in the textbooks in this study. Only mixed
gender group images from both textbooks in this study were examined, for
relationship roles are more easily determined in mixed gender group images than
solitary images (California State Department of Education, 1988). Typically, those in
higher status are given more agency roles, while those with subordinate status are
regulated to the supporting roles (Plutchik, 1993).
Table 21 listed 83% of the mixed gender group images contained the
active/male and inactive/female text portrayal in Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008).
The percentage was even higher for Stokstad (2008), for in Table 22 it was shown that
91% of the mixed gender group images contained interpretations consisting of the
active/male and inactive/female roles. As both textbooks in this study were rated high
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in using the active/male and inactive/female format, this researcher will only include a
few examples of the text/image analysis for this section.
An example where a male image was interpreted with more agency than a
female image in near exact composition can be found in Stokstad (2008). Athena was
placed in the middle of a pediment with fighting warriors on both sides of her, the text
description emphasized her erect and larger than life-sized body (Stokstad). In almost
the same pediment composition, Apollo was described by Stokstad as having the
ability the stop the battle between the centaurs and Lapiths with only a raise of his
hand: Lapith men were fighting centaurs after the centaurs were attempting to rape
Lapith women at a party. Stokstad gave the male image special powers to stop a battle
while the female image was given a role of non-involvement where a war is won by
the warriors’ efforts alone.
However, not all art historians or archeologists agree on the placement of the
pediment figures or that even Apollo was calming the fight, he may have been
pointing out Eurytion (centaur chief) for a warrior to attack. Like in Athena’s possibly
alluded role, Apollo’s role may have been to be more of an inspiration for the warriors
to quash the attack. However, the interpretation that Stokstad (2008) chose to give,
gave Apollo more agency that the “erect” goddess.
Another example of the active male and inactive female theme was found in a
metope depicting a scene from one of the labors of Heracles that included Athena,
Heracles, and Atlas. In the main text, after the legend was retold, Stokstad (2008)
133
focused on the nude male figures and Athena with her “flesh of her body pressing
through the graceful fall of heavy drapery” (p. 131); however, under the caption,
Stokstad mentioned a key point in the metope: Heracles buckles under the weight of
the sky while Athena is able to hold it up effortlessly with one hand. This researcher
appreciated that Stokstad at least directed the reader to this area in the image, but this
researcher believes it should have been in the main text not as an aside. This would
have given credit to Athena’s strength, though on the other hand, it is common in
patriarchal legends to allow females to become helpmates to male heroes.
In another example, both textbooks discussed a processional frieze of the
Parthenon. In both textbooks the east and north sides of the frieze were compared
since they depicted the procession or parade scenes. Stokstad (2008) did give
somewhat of an action role to a female image by stating that the women of the city
made a new peplos for the statue of Athena and carried it to the Parthenon. However,
the Stokstad (p. 142) action descriptor for the male only processional frieze differed:
“skilled riders managing powerful steeds.” While the male riders “plunge ahead at a
full gallop” the women in the procession are walking at a very slow “stately” pace
(Stokstad, p. 142). The Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008, p. 72) text also noted the
acceleration of the north frieze with the horseman and the deceleration of the
procession with the “standing women walkers” of the east frieze.
Neither textbook in this study included that it was a civic honor for the two
girls or maidens to be city representatives to carry the peplos for the statue. In
134
addition, it was never mentioned that the “parade marshal(s)” (Stokstad, 2008, p. 142)
or “elder” ([Gardner], Kliener & Mamiya, 2008, p. 73) role was to take the tray (which
possibly held the peplos) from the maidens, hence the halt. The girls on the frieze had
already reached their destination, and were not just ‘standing around’ as passive
observers at the end of the procession.
The final example of a mixed gender grouping is the krater depicting Artemis
slaying Actaeon with a bow and arrow while his dogs attacked him. Stokstad (2008)
listed two versions of the myth which provided the possible motive for Artemis’s
attack:
1. Actaeon was attacked because of Artemis’s jealousy over Actaeon boasting
he was the better hunter;
2. Actaeon was courting a woman that the married Zeus wanted to pursue.
The adjectives or characteristics Stokstad (2008, p. 135) explicitly and
implicitly gave to the goddess Artemis were
1. “angry” (emotion associated with males, unless it’s in defense of others);
2. “enraged” (lack of emotional control is negatively associated with
females);
3. sensitive to the needs of others, which is a stereotypical feminine
characteristic, (Aldrich & Tenebaum, 2006; Bem, 1974; Carinci, 2001).
And in this case it was Zeus’s needs. What could have been a discussion to a gain a
new level of meaning for this artwork, such as, women’s resentment of male privilege,
135
men’s message of warning about powerful women, or gender stereotypes, was not
undertaken by Stokstad (2008).
In addition, Stokstad (2008) excluded another popular version of this myth:
since it was forbidden to look at the goddess Artemis, and Actaeon was spying on
Artemis while she was bathing, he was therefore killed. This researcher contemplates
that by not including the version of the bathing Artemis--who successfully ‘resisted’
and where the voyeur received consequences for the intrusion by her hands, the
stereotypical fantasy role of the accommodating bathing (nude) female was not
compromised.
Gender and violence. A theoretical foundation of feminist art theory is to
examine the theme of gender and violence. There was a relatively high amount of
violence and warfare within the textbooks in this study which was reflected in Tables
23 and 24. In the Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) text, 42% of the chapter on
Greek art employed violence and warfare in the text or images, while the overall tally
for Stokstad’s (2008) use of this theme was 36%. Also, the Tables 23 and 24 listed the
percentage of text or images that blatantly depicted violence against females, Gardner
(Kliener & Mamiya,) was found to have a total of 7% whereas Stokstad was tallied as
having 26% (of the total violence count) depicting violence against females.
This researcher found disappointing the lack of critical text discussing violence
against females in both textbooks of this study. Both textbooks contained the recount
of the Classical myth of Persues beheading Medusa. Only Stokstad (2008) included
136
images of Amazons, though being clubbed, stabbed, and pulled off a horse by male
Greek warriors; the chieftain murdering his wife; and the attempt to rape a woman.
None of the text incorporated how a viewer of gender violence would respond to
images of violence, rape, and murder, whether an art history student or from the Greek
culture.
Nevertheless, the high rate of violence in the textbooks in this study’s chapter
of Greek art should not be surprising. Along with colonialism, the overall cultural and
religious theme in ancient Greece was killing and death. Hershey (1987) accounts that
the Greek temple’s architectural elements, represent and are named after the objects
used in “catching and eating victims –human, animal, and vegetable—or after bits and
pieces of the victims themselves” (p. 77).
Sadly (at least to some), classical Athens could have been considered a violent
“phallocracy” where the phallic symbol was not a symbol of mutual pleasure but more
like a sword to ensure power and control over outsiders—women, foreigners, and the
disabled (Keuls, 1985). Like the caryatids, the ever so popular phallic images, as seen
on the statues of gods throughout the city of Athens or in colossal form along the
avenue of Priapus on Delos (the forerunners to the phallic images found on shop signs,
road signs, and near home entryways in the Roman world) were visual reminders that
women were in a vulnerable position in ancient Greece and the males were culturally
valued and thought of as the ideal (Johns, 1982; Miles & Norwich, 1997). Neither
Gardner (Kliener & Mamiya, 2008) nor Stokstad (2008) expounded on the violent
137
nature of the religion or the phallic imagery in the Greek world. Most conservative art
history writing like that found in both textbooks of this study; sift through Greek
culture taking only certain aspects to promote the legacies of Western culture.
It seemed to this researcher that both textbooks in this study designed the
chapter on Greek art to fit more readily into the next chapter: Roman art, which of
course is the foundation of the narrative story of the West. Through the use of
expository text, the study of Greek art could have been more interesting, exciting, and
fit better into students’ cultural schemata. Therefore, the higher levels of thinking
could have been promoted, rather than offering the stereotypical narrative (often
narratives in educational materials are associated with the lower grade levels and
lower levels of cognition) as did so by Gardner (2008).and Stokstad (2008).
Course Syllabi
Ten syllabi, of the lower division Western art survey course (pre-historic
through Middle Ages) at ten California State University campuses, were examined in
this study to denote gender inclusion through the use of the term gender within the
body of the syllabi. Of the course syllabi in this study, it was found that none
contained the word “gender”
Catalog Course Description
Based on the syllabi in this study, each course was reviewed in the catalog
course description of that particular campus and evaluated for the use of the terms
138
“gender,” “men and women”. It was found that no catalog course description in this
study referred to the terms of gender nor men and women.
Limitations
A limitation of this study was that there was only one coder. It would have
been helpful to have had at least two coders in this study to “double check” tallies to
ensure accuracy and increase levels of objectivity. A possible limitation regarding
sample size was found in the resistance of art departments and art history professors
willing to share their course syllabus. Also, due to time and resources, equivalent
syllabi/curriculum from California Community Colleges, University of California, and
out of state institutions were missing from this analysis, limiting the overall scope of
investigation.
Recommendations
In order for gender to be included in the syllabi, this researcher recommends
that art departments within the CSU system include the term “gender” within the
catalog course descriptions of this lower division art history course in order to pave
the way for gender to be included in the syllabi, thereby giving gender a prominent
position of topic for this course. Furthermore, if gender were an important component
in the syllabi and catalog course descriptions for this lower division art history survey
course, then gender’ awareness could be fostered within the students.
It is also a recommendation to rid the gender-biased textbooks from this lower
division art history course. Cynically applying the overused cliché, ‘In times like
139
these,’ sexist curricula are too expensive for students at any socio-economic level. At
the time of the study, tuition for this lower division art history course was one
thousand dollars for an undergraduate and two thousand dollars for a graduate student,
while the textbook alone was a hundred dollars plus. Such an out of date (the use of a
gender-biased non critical text) yet expensive education is a disservice to all CSU
students. An option for replacing the currently used textbooks in this course includes
providing a critically written postmodern (feminist art history scholarship) course
reader, which would more than offset the tuition cost.
Along with gender equitable art curricula, it is recommended that college
faculty, textbook publishers, and students understand the importance of equity as it
relates to learning and the reader. Social observation and brain research tell us that
derogatory labels and exclusionary tactics promote the lowest order of thinking and
behavior, therefore retarding socio-emotional development. Therefore, gender
equitable art curricula are recommended for social change.
However, this researcher notes the difficulty for syllabi/curricula to carry
equitable views when its very purpose is to reflect the dominant culture’s belief
system, for such a system often negates the effects of negative labeling and silenced
voices. Using a very broad, but pertinent example, in May 2010, this researcher was
told by a school principal that after a full school year of a sixth grade student reporting
to teachers that his parent was calling him names (fat, lazy, liar, crazy), at the end of
the school year the student told his classmates of his plans to commit suicide, Child
140
Protective Services (CPS) was called; though a report was made, CPS chose not to
interview the child nor the parents and quickly closed the case. Risking
distastefulness, this researcher made a correlation between the aforementioned
example and gender-biased textbooks, in how damaging labels can be, how others
often minimize the effects, and how important it is to have healthy role models and
listen to one another. Therefore, the final (and most radical) recommendation is for the
general public and government agencies to understand and recognize that character
labels given to others effect their identity and demeaning labels are an expression of
emotional abuse; emotional abuse causes brain structure changes and leads to
regression to earlier developmental stages, and finally, emotional abuse is epitomized
in gender inequity and exclusion.
Conclusion
It is this researcher’s conclusion that the curricula examined in this study are a
reflection of the belief system within the wider society. Gender equity is not found in
most institutions in our culture. Sexism is so ingrained in many of our consciousness
that it goes unnoticed. Even in college art history textbooks, sexism is reinforced and
perpetuated. However, this behavior does not stop at the student level; it continues at
the teaching level, for how one teaches a subject is often a reflection of their own
learning experience. And those teachers or instructors who break away from the norm
and bring feminist art history to the traditional format are more likely to gain outsider
status and may eventually be ousted from the department. So it is just not about gender
141
equitable curricula, it is also about how much awareness can be found within the
hierarchy of education.
Although it is a formidable task to promote gender equity in art history survey
course curricula, it is an assignment that needs to be attended to with agency to
counter blocks from traditionalists. However, such impetus may have to begin with
those willing to risk outsider status in questioning the inequitable art history curricula
because the current curricula are not providing a gender equitable education.
142
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