I won't say that I spoke too soon about my women's studies class. I will say that last night was a good class, but I expected it to be. Last night's topic (in part) was "feminist art epistemologies." So taking aesthetics over the summer and then art this semester, I knew I'd have plenty to contribute and fight back with. Plus I'm in a class of historians and social science students... so my lingering fears of "I don't know enough, I have nothing to contribute" was completely gone... most have little knowledge of the art world.
The article assigned for class was by Peg Brand ("Feminist Art Epistemologies: Understanding Feminist Art"), and while reading it, all I could keep thinking was questions of intentionality. Many of the discussions of the process of "legitimization" for women artists in academia, culture, and history has a similar trajectory to music-- another comfortable familiarity for me. When Brand gets down to defining "feminist visual parody," she demands that for works to be feminist, we must know artistic intention and have knowledge of the subject matter in visual history.
And at first I thought that was limiting. The anti-intentionalist theorists would scoff. We shouldn't need to have all that information for us to know it is art. Then I realized that we weren't asking questions of whether it was "art" but if it was "feminist." We began a short discussion of this article (to which I raised questions of intentionality), and then the professor introduced a short documentary on the "Quilt's of Gee's Bend." Women, since the Depression in incredibly rural Alabama, have created gorgeous quilts to keep their family warm. In recent years these quilts have been bought up by art dealers and shown in major exhibits all across the country. And so the professor asks us if these pieces are "feminist art." To which the class replied "yes." It was created by women who took it upon themselves to provide for their family by whatever means necessary. By using fabrics of their old worn out clothing, the women were writing their histories into cloth. I bide my time. Professor looks at me. To which I say. No. This is not feminist art.
And here is my argument. More articulate than I was last night. Which I type here because I think it directly relates to my dissertation material.
The quilts of Gee's Bend are not feminist art. These women did not intentionally set out to create "works of art." There is a practicality to it that precludes this. Women stated they didn't care the layout of the quilt; they used whatever materials they had. Sometimes, the quilts were created socially (women sitting around singing and sewing), while other times it was out of necessity (staying up until the wee hours of the morning so their babies wouldn't freeze to death). If I were a strict intentionalist, I would immediately say the objects themselves aren't art. Period. End of subject.
But typically I'm not an intentionalist. I think the quilts are artfully crafted, beautiful works. Except for when it comes to the term "feminism," I find myself more of an intentionalist. Feminism is an intentional act. Feminist scholars work to remedy the dearth of scholarship on women. Activist feminists protest. Women intentionally speak out. Feminists question the status quo. To be a feminist means an intentional call to action.
So I argue that the Gee's Bend women did not themselves create feminist works of art. But the ensuing activities of art galleries and collectors were feminist. If we are to live in a post-modern/post-post modern/contemporary world (however you want to term it), then most definitely the actions of those who saw these quilts can be classified as feminist. Jenny Holzer writes phrases in all capital letters and displays them on billboards in Times Square, and that's considered feminist art... because she intentionally set out to make a statement about women. That's what the art dealers/collectors were doing. They shed light onto an area of women's history that was previously unknown. They were trying to show the tenacity and strength of American women. The artistic establishment created feminist art, not the women themselves.
Now relating back to my dissertation. I think it would be too easy to say that I was looking for the feminists of fin de siecle America. Surely you can find women who you could interpret as feminists. Suffragettes, for example. But fewer women in a musical realm were thinking in those terms. It's almost anachronistic to say that someone like Rose Fay Thomas or Cecile Chaminade were feminists. Because they weren't. (Partially because the term in America wasn't readily used until the 1910s.) In fact they advocated women to remain within the home. They simply provided alternative activities to everyday housework. In formulating exactly what I'm trying to argue at this point, I'm completely leaving out the term "feminist." Perhaps it will work its way back in when I begin to talk about the ensuing musical culture that these figures of femininity created. But when speaking of the women themselves, as a historian, I cannot bring myself to characterize their actions in a feminist light.
What I'm doing... that's feminist musicology. But I'm not studying feminist history exactly. I'm studying women's history. Musical culture by women, for women. Takeaway point for me from last night's class: I don't think we should throw out the term "feminist" lightly. Feminism is an intentional act. And feminist art is consciously thought out.
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