Deepwell - Feminist Art Manifestos

FEMINIST MANIFESTO (c. 1970-1971)

NANCY SPERO

male/female relationships are essentially asymmetrical;
men dominate women, at least jurally, in all human societies
Harold W. Scheffler Structuralism in Anthropology

Papas little bed pal. Lump of love.
James Joyce Ulysses

The arts, like all areas of activity, are preempted by men. It is male territory governed by the tacit laws of male supremacy. Art is always viewed in the aggressive histories of male dominance. As viewed by the male ego, art is masculine. There is no feminine counterpart (even when the arts are considered effete, it is in terms of male effeteness rather than thru so-called over-femininized attributes of delicacy and restraint even if such attributes could be given biological verification.

There are many women artists, many who are well-known, but art itself is viewed as masculine and the product of aggressive male instincts imbued with masculine hero-worship and male-style notoriety. The term avant-garde referring as it does to military nomenclature is aggressive-militaristic in origin, and avant-garde notions in art are masculinised versions of revolt, clearly contained within a masculinised status quo.

Women artists are supposed to be servile by training and history. In this male bourgeois social order, a woman is as good as a man, only less so and her art is as good as a mans, only less so and those women who are celebrated as artists are celebrated, only less so.

Female museum personnel, female gallery owners and female critics in the characterizations and distributions of contemporary art are even more dominated by sexism than female artists. Feminine inclusion in museum collection exhibitions, gallery groups, etc, is well below 10%. A rapid survey of artists represented in the Whitney Museum collection of American art reveals 8% female, 92% male.

The woman artist demands an autonomy equal to mans. Women artists must rebel against the male caste and economic control (male imperialism is based on a primitive biological separation of roles). Women artists are increasingly angry and militant.

In the future there may be feminine or masculine arts, but this will appear under the aegis of some more ultimate liberation. Today there is an art that is a mixture of the history of what has been, a diffused asexual generalized art. This would be fine were it not dominated in all its external manifestations by simplistic male-ego drives.

The ultimate liberation of women is the hardest and most ultimate task of revolution because her biological subordination has been so historical and determined. (The ultimate liberation of men from repressive and sexist roles is the equally difficult complimentary male task of revolution). It is so deep-rooted in the so-called rhythms of nature that to break with it is to create a virtually new order of creature co-equal to man. Then art will change. This is the future.

But the future is in the future. Women artists today condemn male dominance in a bourgeois society. We condemn male suprematist elitism. Women artists demand the immediate break-up of the repressive, sexist male ego domination of museums, galleries, etc. We demand that equality of movement and opportunity taken for granted by men. We demand a new kind of space, a space free from repression to develop the roles of freedom.

Katy Deepwell (editor)

KT press books