Authors: Betty Dodson Inga Muscio
Cunt (22 page)
The difficulty in locating art made by women artists compared with the
impossibility
of avoiding art work created by men reflects
how women live
in this culture.
It is the absolute normal reality.
Cultural symbols that hold deep representational meaning for the community are shaped
by the victors of history’s present telling. The victors have a time-tested interest
in controlling women’s bodies, decimating civilizations, playing cops and robbers,
keeping people of color and white women in our “proper” pigeonholed place and glorifying
themselves through power plays with each other.
These interests are serviced through most television shows, movies, songs and music
videos readily available. The interests of the victors project and reinforce absolutely
nada, zilch, nothing, zero,
that serves women.
Yet we view and absorb this art every livelong day.
And it hurts us.
Ouch.
Every day.
Here is a paragraph from the 1997 handbook for the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival:
If you play recorded music that can be heard by others, please make it music with
womyn only vocals. We come here to enjoy a womyn-only environment, part of which is
hearing only womyn’s voices. This is not a judgment on men or music, but a strong,
positive desire to spend these few special days surrounded only by the sounds of womyn.
The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival is an unparalleled spiritual experience for—I’d
be willing to wager—every woman who attends. It is a weeklong world created not so
much without men, as with women. Women cook the food, play the music, guard the gates
and drive the shuttle busses twenty-four hours a day. We see, speak, smell, taste
and touch nothing but women. Every structure, artifact and song is of women’s creation.
It is not often one has the opportunity to exist in an entire community of women,
wholly untouched by men, even for a day.
The only men who set foot on the festival grounds do so to empty out the Porta-Janes.
It can change a lady forever.
When I step outside my home, I am besieged by the creations of men. They designed
the cars driving down the streets, indeed, they planned the placement of the streets.
Since architecture is one of the many, many fields considered “male dominated,” I
trust that most of the buildings and residences I see come from the blueprints of
men’s minds. Ditto landscaping. The probably male-designed movie posters at the bus
stops usually feature men, and if not, represent the labor of male producers, directors,
sound engineers and camera operators. If I turn on the radio while I am driving down
this male-made street, the voices of men selling their products and singing their
songs about how much they love/hate/want to fuck women will promenade into into my
male-designed automobile.
It is not difficult to appreciate the art of men.
In fact, it is dang-ola a chore to altogether evade it.
For two years in college, I read only books by women. I did not watch television or
read magazines in the check-out line. I studied paintings, photographs, sculptures
and films created solely by women.
George Bush Sr. got hisself inaugurated, Ted Bundy counted down the days to his execution
and Somalia cried out in pain, but I was in Zora Neale Hurston’s world. Leslie Marmon
Silko kissed me good night. Sister Rosetta Tharpe sang lullabies into my sleep. Diane
Arbus scared me giddy. Maya Linn was the Cinderella of my heart. Käthe Kollowitz made
me cry and cry and cry.
It was only an experiment. I only meant it to be one of those let’s-see-what-happens-if-I-do-this
kind of things. But it turned into sort of a habit. I fully immersed myself in the
expressions of women, exclusively, and felt so comfortable, I guess I just didn’t
leave.
I wouldn’t venture to advocate a supreme,
lifelong
militancy about the gender specifics of art appreciation. I recently finished Laurence
Leamer’s eight hundred-plus page book,
The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family.
Chet Baker croons through the speakers as I write. The taxidermy manual I read last
month was written by a man, but I’ve forgotten his name, Jesse Charles or something.
As far as I’m concerned, Samuel L. Jackson is a demigod and I’m never-endingly inspired
by the garden of Mr. Young-Park, who lives next door.
It’s not a bad idea, however, to focus
solely
on the artistic expressions of women for at least one year. That way you notice not
only the horrifying prevalence of male artistic expression much more, but the mother
lode of inspiration and brilliance our grandmothers, mothers and sisters have produced.
I loathe special sections for women just as much as the next lady. It will forever
bug the shit out of me that there’s a “W” before “NBA.” This designation makes certain
we know that all basketball involves men, unless it’s this special,
exceptional circumstance
which can only be qualified as “women’s basketball.”
Schools have classes called “women’s studies,” and “African-American literature” because
the standard for
existence
set by white men has yet to be rescinded in this age. “Normal” history is the history
of a certain class of white people, from the perspective of men. All the other histories
are precisely that: other.
I wish that when I said “rockstar,” the kneejerk status quo association was Me’Shell
“Brilliant Goddess Lovechild” NdegéOcello instead of Keith “Piece of Shit” Richards.
I wish when I queried “Great American Writer?” most people standing on the street
would respond, “Oh, yes, well
obviously
Flannery O’Connor and Louise Erdrich,” instead of, “Why, John Steinbeck and Ernest
Hemingway, of course.”
But that is not the case at all.
There is subsequently an unfortunate—yet urgent—need for something I’ll refer to as
a “Cuntlovin’ Women’s Art Movement.” At least, until our culture no longer recognizes
women within a male paradigm, and language and perception have broadened enough to
imply the [art] world’s inclusion of and dependence upon women.
Also, not to sound like a total wet blanket.
The
multitude
of acclaimed cuntlovin’ artists bustin’ fine round womanly asses getting honest reflections
of us into the world
thrills me Beyond measure.
Women populate the stages, giving acceptance speeches for Nobels, Grammys, Pulitzers
and Guggenheims like never before. With each passing year, it grows easier and easier
to immerse oneself in the expressions of women.
The singular detail here is to
immerse
yourself in the expressions of women; to
create
a Cuntlovin’ Women’s Art Movement with your friends, sisters, lovers and daughters;
to be part of the community that defines art.
Cuntlovin’ Women’s Art Movement
Item #C.W.A.M.-1: chant
You are what you eat.
You meet who you greet.
You head where you tread.
You dead when not fed.
Cuntlovin’ Women’s Art Movement
Item #C.W.A.M.-2: womanifesto
the neverending “she taught me” womanifesto
. . . diamanda galas.
she taught me.
all the pain and joy of the whole wide world is inside my body.
my dna never forgets.
her voice in my body is the inquisition, all slavery ever, all rape,
all war, AIDS. her voice brings all that pain into my body—
which hurts—but the fact that she offers me the opportunity to
physically perceive the complexities of this pain, which exists in
the world in her voice, means it exists in the world in my body,
too. knowing this, the ball’s in my court to take responsibility,
which gives me power.
all the pain and joy of the whole wide world is inside my body.
my dna never forgets.
leslie marmon silko.
she taught me.
if i want it to, history can mean his story. but mostly and much
moreover, history means
hi, story.
she said hi, story, and i understood what the vietnam war was
from her perspective, which mirrors my own much more
closely than the textbooks i read in school. she told me cowboys
and indians are people i see in my everyday life, the nahual flies
overhead, slavery is a business based on male sexuality and
home is where the heart is.
if i want it to, history can mean his story. but mostly and much
moreover, history means
hi, story.
pippi longstocking.
she taught me.
don’t you worry about me, i always come out on top.
she reigns supreme over the police, mean boys, pirates, nosey
parkers, uppity snoots, the education system, monsters and
rascally impositions of her culture. the wonders of just simply
being alive in the world are limited solely by her imagination.
she was one of the first fashion inspirations of my life, and when i
grew up, her stories became the vortex of my feminist rhetoric.
don’t you worry about me, i always come out on top.
remedios varo.
she taught me.
i am what i eat.
she painted pictures of magic happening, which are also what
her paintings, themselves, are. her life, her cosmology and her
product are three mirrors peering into one another at the same
time, infinity. her precise science is based on the findings deep
inside her consciousness and it is irrefutable. what comes from
her is what she is because she is what she comes from.
i am what i eat....
Cuntlovin’ Women’s Art Movement
Item #C.W.A.M.-3:
http://www.guerrillagirls.com
The Guerrilla Girls have been an exemplary part of this culture for over a decade.
Here is their mission statement:
The Guerrilla Girls are a group of women artists and arts professionals who make posters
about discrimination. Dubbing ourselves the conscience of the art world, we declare
ourselves feminist counterparts to the mostly male tradition of anonymous do-gooders
like Robin Hood, Batman, and the Lone Ranger. We wear gorilla masks to focus on the
issues rather than our personalities. We use humor to convey information, provoke
discussion, and show that feminists can be funny. In 10 years, we have produced over
70 posters, printed projects, and actions that expose sexism and racism in the art
world and the culture at large. Our work has been passed around the world by kindred
spirits who consider themselves Guerrilla Girls too. The mystery surrounding our identities
has attracted attention and support. We could be anyone; we are everywhere. (
www.guerrillagirls.com
)
The Guerrilla Girls are one of the most internationally recognized activist groups
on the planet. Though they’ll never get due credit, the Guerrilla Girls’ poster style
is a huge inspirational prototype for the strong-image/in-your-face text combo that
has become formulaic in everything from Nike ads to blockbuster movie trailers.
Their tactics are clever, humorous and highly effective. They attack specific issues
at specific locations. Guerrilla Girl propaganda is clearly and concisely worded.
The vivid, often co-opted images grab the attention of non-English-speaking people,
those unable to read and the completely jaded, alike.