FINAL DISSERTATION (optimised)

SEXUALITY AS SUBVERSION
How are female artists in contemporary art provoking ‘Subversity’
alongside the ideology of femininity within their work?
Jessica Smith
Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art Dissertation.
The University of Lincoln
Student Number 11307600
Supervised by Dr Catherine George

I certify that this thesis, and the research to which it refers, are the product
of my own work, and that any ideas or quotations from the work of other
people, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with
the standard referencing practices of the discipline.
Jessica Smith
March 2016

iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of contents iii
Introduction 1
Chapter One - Ideology of the feminine, and femininity 3
1.1 Gender Identity- Predetermined vs Performed 3
Chapter Two - Understanding femininity and marginalised domains within art 7
2.1 The construction of femininity 7
2.2 Femininityand the history of the crafts 8
2.3 Subverting the ‘maleness’ of sculpture 11
Chapter Three – Surfacing sexuality as strategy 15
3.1 Understanding sexual difference and ‘sexualities’ 15
3.2 Strategies of female artists 17
3.3 Sexing Sculpture 24
3.2 Female sexuality and ‘shock’ 27
Chapter Four – Conclusion 29
Works Cited 32
Images 36
Full Bibliography 37

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INTRODUCTION
‘…because of the coincidence of language and patriarchy the ‘feminine’ is
(metaphorically) set on the side of the heterogeneous, the unnameable, the
unsaid; and that in so far as the feminine is said or articulated in language,
it is profoundly subversive.’ (Kelly, 1987, 310).
This thesis will be questioning the idea of ‘sexuality as subversion,’ by examining the work
of various contemporary female artists such as, Louise Bourgeois, Hannah Wilke, Yayoi
Kusama and Polly Norton.
I ask: Is this work subverting what might be a commonly understood notion of the feminine?
How is the expression of sexuality within the works related to concepts of gender and
femininity? Moreover, are our current terms sufficient to describe the complexity of
women’s practice?
Issues of gender, sex and inequality are analysed through Feminist Philosophy and Social
Theory – Helene Cixous with an Essentialist viewpoint and Judith Butler with the Social
Constructionist perspective, they are parallel theories in conjunction with femininity and
sexuality but are on opposing sides of exploring these issues. Femininity is understood
through social theory, and gender understood as philosophically through feminist
philosophy.
The artists I will explore may be subverting from a place of dissent against the stereotypes
of female identity and gender roles, so topics such as the domesticity of the ‘feminine’ crafts
and explanations of the construction of gender, ‘womanliness’ and ‘femininity’ will be
introduced. Showing how the creation of these contested terms may lead to speculation of

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the patriarchal oppression of women for example, as believed by many stems of feminism,
e.g. the Radical Feminists, and this may have contributed to the artist’s subversive intents.
I shall explore the different strategies deployed in each artwork to challenge these
ideologies. Inevitably, the relationship between female sexuality and shock will arise and
will be considered along the way.
The 1970s were a particularly subversive decade; the feminist arts movement for example
addressed certain political strategies to combat the struggles of being a female artist of that
time. The women’s movement also targeted ‘the question of gender as a product of socially,
historically and psycho-socially constructed representations’ (Parker and Pollock, 1987, 53)
and it’s important to recognise that the gender struggle was not limited to women, but to
lesbians and homosexual men too. The various movements of the 1970s running through
the 1980s were successful in addressing these struggles, through collective action (Parker
and Pollock, 1987, 53).
With reference to these past movements, this thesis will investigate the strategies of
challenging these gender struggles in relation to women and art, whilst questioning if
subversion is still a useful category to explain this.

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IDEOLOGY OF THE FEMININE AND ‘FEMININITY’
GENDER IDENTITY- PREDETERMINED VS PERFORMED
‘’Gender’ typically refers to the social process of dividing up people and
social practices along the lines of sexed identities. The gendering process
frequently involves creating hierarchies between the divisions it enacts’
(Beasley, 2005, 11).
The division and hierarchy of gender in Western society is often a binary one, thus divided
into two ‘opposing’ categories, men and women. This involves a strong association with
men and public life, and contrasting to that, the women and the domestic life, although they
can occupy both spaces. With this binary division of gender one cannot exist without the
other, and ‘to be a man is to be not-woman and vice versa’ (Beasley, 2005, 11-12).
The term ‘gender’ is also a conflicting one, as its relevance in contemporary society appears
unnecessary today and does not allow for other forms of identities to be considered. Writers
deploying psychoanalytic frameworks such as, Grosz (1994), Mitchell (1982) and Braidotti
(1994) would suggest that using words such as ‘sex’, ‘sexuality’ or ‘sexual difference’
should be used instead. In critical thinking, the term only became widespread until the
1970s, when the various movements, e.g. the Women’s Movement and the Gay Movement,
were taking place at that time which were essentially also trying to combat the problematic
concept of gender (Beasley, 2005, 14).
However problematic the term may be, we must recognise other arguments, which highlight
the ‘different understandings of the relationship between biology and the social ordering of
sexed identities, as well as the historical/cultural specificity of the theoretical names and
traditions’ (Beasley, 2005, 14).

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Addressing the formation of gender identity and complexity of heterogeneity, Lorber
interestingly argues that ‘there is no definition of the word female that could include
everyone we label as female. Some individuals whom we label female have a uterus, other
don’t.’ This can be interpreted to mean that to treat gender as a binary concept would be
excluding the ‘intermediate sexes’ and that the expectation of humans having to be either
male or female, lead to what Sociologists call a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, where ‘something
we believe to be true is then, through our actions, made into truth’. For instance, society will
do anything possible to align themselves and appear as either one of the binary sexes,
through possible sex assignment surgery of intersex new-borns for example (Lorber, 1993,
13).
To demonstrate the complexity of gender and sexuality, Gender Studies writers such as
Cranny-Francis et al (2003) view gender as intertwined with sexuality and so forms the basis
for many sexual identities and practices (Beasley, 2005, 14). Many presume that gender is
the foundation of sexual identities, so consequently shapes sexuality. Although Sexuality
Studies writers are sceptical, Rubin (1984) for instance, argues that ‘sexuality should be
treated separate from gender’ (Beasley, 2005, 14). Along with few Feminist and Masculinist
writers, MacKinnon (1982) believes that ‘sexuality is prior to gender’ (Beasley, 2005, 23),
these theories briefly explained validate how gender and sexuality studies theoretically are
far from straightforward (Beasley, 2005, 15).
Gender identity is seen to be performed and Karin A. Martin in ‘Becoming a Gendered
Body’ in 1998 focuses in on practices of preschools to illustrate how genders are socially
constructed. She argues that from a very young age children learn to ‘do gender’ and
‘perform gender’ which are two terms that scholars use to somewhat refer to the actions that
individuals take to identify ‘their bodies as “properly” masculine or feminine’, for example
when women apply make-up and when men try not to cry at sad films. The conformity to

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gender norms within preschools is said to ‘convince the rest of us that the differences
between boys and girls, men and women, are natural, rather than socially constructed’
(Martin, 1998, 27). This emphasizes the idea that socialisation of norms and values at a
young age extremely influence the concept of our gender roles and differences.
Many Feminist Sociologists like Zimmerman and Butler theorise that there are ‘no
meaningful natural differences’ between genders (Martin, 1998, 46) and other sociological
theorists such as Foucault, acknowledge that preschool as an institution through discipline
differences and in commands even if subtle, genders children’s bodies in this way.
To address this idea further of a socially constructed gender and the conception of gender
as ‘performativity1
’ (Brooks, 1997, 192), Butler (1985), one of many feminist sociologists,
stated that:
‘We are born male or female, but not masculine or feminine. Femininity is
an artifice, and achievement, “a mode of enacting and re-enacting received
gender norms which surface as so many styles of flesh”’ (Bartky, 1988, 67).
This quote affirms her position that ‘division along gender lines is simply the articulation
of repeated performances of culturally sanctioned acts of gender’ (Brooks, 1997, 192).
In opposition to this quote, theorists such as Kant, go as far to say that the female and
‘femaleness’ is something ‘other’ (Battersby, 1998, 73). Freud’s theories regarding females
‘lack of phallus/penis’ in the ‘castration complex, i.e. anxiety concerning the removal of the
penis for boys, and envy of the penis for girls’ (Kelly, 1987, 304) support this concept of
female as ‘other’ based on biological difference. This apparent ‘lack of’ something regards
the female as subordinate to the male. In addition, influential to Kant is Galenic orthodoxy
1
For further reading on Butler and ‘performativity’ see chapter 9 - Postfeminisms and Cultural Space:
Sexuality, Subjectivity and Identity In: Brooks, A. (1997) Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory and
Cultural Forms. New York: Taylor & Francis. Pages 189-209.

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(c.130-200) and Aristotle’s metaphysical body where the female is ‘the container for the
male seed’ (Battersby, 1998, 72).
This dated and radical view of the female body, whereby identity and gender is ‘linked with
a metaphysics2
of absence’ (Battersby, 1998, 80) is contested by Mary Kelly in On Sexual
Politics and Art in 1987 where she explained that ‘femininity is synonymous with our
‘negative signification’ in the order of language and culture. It begins even before you're
born, when you're given your father's name’ (Kelly, 1987, 304).
Radical Feminists, which stems from Feminism, a subfield of gender and sexuality theory,
would claim that this is further evidence to suggest a presence of a patriarchal society where
women are inferior to the man, and are restricted to gender roles seen as normal for a woman
of that time.
However Feminist theories concerning gender identities and the construction of gender e.g.
those by Bordo (1993), Connell (1995) and Young (1990), often fail to consider how the
adult body became gendered in the first place and therefore only focus on the adult gendered
body as a result and further perpetuate the sense that gender differences are normal (Martin,
1998, 46).
2
‘Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct but to find these reasons is no
less an instinct’ – F.H. Bradley (1893) (Battersby, 1998, 81)

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UNDERSTANDING FEMININITY AND MARGINALISED
DOMAINS IN ART
THE CONSTRUCTION OF FEMININITY
This section will use womanliness interchangeably with femininity and standard definitions
can help us to understand these complex terms. Femininity is a social construct, which is
defined as ‘womanliness’ and ‘the fact of being a woman, the qualities that are considered
to be typical of women’ (Collins Dictionaries, 2014, 215). However, the ‘qualities’ that
constitute ‘womanliness’ are culturally and historically specific. To possess ‘womanliness’
in relation to the feminine, is more generous in the imagery it reveals, and is much more
complimentary than purely having a perceived notion of ‘femininity’, due to past historical
ideals.
Rosalind Coward in Rereading Freud, The Making of the Feminine 1978, states that
psychoanalysis together with Marxist3
theory is important in defining the ‘feminine’ as they
provide an account of how the categorisation of the ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are
constructed. ‘It is this which will make possible for us to examine the relation between forms
of sexual behaviour and forms of social organisation’ (Parker and Pollock 1987, 90).
Primary socialisation that takes place in the home, with gender colour stereotyping e.g. pink
for baby girls and blue for baby boys, and many other things such as language and
appropriate feminine behaviour is learnt, through observation and imitation, from parents
or guardians and is the basis for the construction of the feminine ideals and norms. The
creation of the feminine also takes place in the public sphere such as in school and mass
3
Marxism stems from the political and economic theories of Karl Marx (1818-83) and Friedrich Engles (1820-
95), which formed the basis for communism. (Colour Oxford English Dictionary, 2002, 426) But also Marxist
analyses focus on the criticisms of capitalism and class distinctions as an ‘organising mode of society and
social relations’ (Beasley, 2005, 253)

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media, for example in films, female imagery and female representation. According to Parker
and Pollock, females are invited to recognise themselves in identities and images projected
to us through the processes of social practices and institutions (Parker and Pollock, 1987,
89).
Joan Rivière in 1929 explained ‘Womanliness therefore could be assumed as a mask’ (De
Zegher, 1996, 5) possibly hiding their possession of masculine habits and traits.
The line between ‘genuine’ womanliness and the ‘masquerade’ is therefore blurred and the
definition of femininity is unclear. Rivière’s work not only produced interest in
‘masquerade’ beyond the scope of this thesis, but by making a distinction between ‘natural’
and ‘performed’ traits it opened up a key divide for later feminist thinkers and enabled the
possibility to think about social construction vs essential traits.
In Rozsika Parker’s The Subversive Stitch, in 1996, she addresses the patriarchal ideology
of an innate femininity as ‘tenacious.’ Qualities such as, being emotional, caring and
domesticated, therefore being the weaker sex, are seen to be ‘natural to women, and
unnatural’ in men’ (Parker, 1996, 3). Parker explains that this innate femininity is hard to
remove as a concept as it is so woven into our cultural history, but it is slowly declining due
to variations in gender constructs such as acceptability of transgender and other forms,
where people can ‘pick and mix’ their chosen identity, as explained by many Postmodernist
sociologists.
FEMININITY AND THE HISTORY OF THE CRAFTS
Femininity is widely linked with domesticity within the mainstream society and culture, and
Rozsika Parker, who discusses the creation of the feminine and its relationship with the
crafts, explains this in depth within many of her books. Within her ground breaking study,
Parker states that:

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‘The manner in which embroidery signifies both self-containment and
submission is the key to understanding women’s relation to the art.
Embroidery has provided a source of pleasure and power for women, while
being indissolubly linked to their powerlessness.’ (1996, 11)
In addition to this quote, In Thinking Through Craft, Glenn Adamson argues that:
‘Craft served double duty as a ‘symbol of unjustly quashed creativity, and a
token of the Feminist desire to break out of the stultification of domesticity,’
(2007, 151).
From these two quotes, we can see the potential for ‘needle’ crafts to subvert this
containment and submission. Crafts such as embroidery for example have provided a source
of satisfaction and support to many women. ‘Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to
underestimate the importance of the role played by embroidery in the maintenance and
creation of the feminine ideal’ (Parker, 1996, 11), as it was considered that the women
embroidered because they were ‘naturally feminine’ and they were seen as ‘feminine
because they naturally embroidered’ (Parker, 1996, 11).
This isn’t so much the case in today’s society, but there is still an assumption made that
anything sewn or stitched was made at the hands of a woman, and can be seen as not a
‘natural’ hobby in which men participate in still.
Female artists that use the crafts, despite this rich history of the domesticity and oppression
relating to needlework and women, are considered controversial to many Feminists who
believe they are continuing to support a patriarchal ideology over the female, and the
feminine crafts. Pennina Barnett, curator of Feministo in Manchester, written about in
Parker’s The Subversive Stitch, talks about the prevailing attitude of the participating artists
in that exhibition. They had,

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‘…an ambivalence towards sewing and textile work. On the one hand they
respect the tradition of needlework… Yet there is also the feeling that by
sewing they are practicing a painstaking feminine craft which has low status
and strong domestic connotations’ (Adamson, 2007, 151).
By removing the value-laden division between what was considered ‘home’ and ‘work’
and ‘art’ and ‘craft’, Feministo affirmed the Women’s Liberation Movement of the late 20th
Century, who argued that the ‘personal is political’ and that ‘personal life is determined by
the wider political structure‘(Parker, 1996, 209).
Many art movements such as Dada, Surrealism and Russian Constructivism however
‘believed that an end to distinctions between the fine and applied arts would create an art
relevant to the lives of the masses of the people’ (Parker, 1996, 190). Division in class meant
that not everyone had access to expensive materials such as paints, instead they opened up
a space for women artists to enter the arts. Women’s skills and activities seen existing within
the home and therefore in the domestic sphere, ‘previously thought to be beneath the
concern of the fine artist, were accorded a new importance’ (Parker, 1996, 190).
This rich history of embroidery is particularly significant for women today, as it enables us
to apprehend that the ‘definitions of sexual difference, and the definitions of art and artist
so weighted against women, are not fixed’ (Parker, 1996, 215). It is my view that there is a
revival of the crafts once more, and it is to do with reclamation and reparation. Since the
influx of technological advancements and machines that made mass production far more
possible, and ultimately much cheaper, we were no longer needed to make ‘the things of
life’ (Gillespie, 1987, 178) although today we can see that ‘turning to craftwork is a refusal.
We may not all see ourselves this way, but we are working from a position of dissent. And
that is a political position.’ (Gillespie, 1987, 178)

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In terms of working with the crafts as an act of dissent, it is political because it is opposing
the consumerist nature of our society, not buying mass produced items and opting to create
these yourself by sewing and stitching, is an example of this.
SUBVERTING THE ‘MALENESS’ OF SCULPTURE
Opposing to the connotation of femininity with the crafts is the female artist’s involvement
in the marginalised domain of sculpture. Throughout art history, men have dominated
sculpture, and female’s growing involvement within this art practice is subverting the norm
and ‘maleness’ of it.
In Roberta McGrath’s Sculpture by women, she explains that the curator of the Ikon Gallery
in Birmingham was hesitant to call it ‘women’s sculpture’ as the opposite of this, ‘men’s
sculpture’, is never seen as necessary and therefore to overstress the feminine qualities of
the work wouldn’t be beneficial to the exhibition (1987, 255). The materials that sculptors
use also have a gendered connotation attached to them. Natural materials that signify a
certain level of warmth such as cloth, wood and paper, or ‘fluxual qualities’ to them such as
wax, or conduction metals like copper have references to the feminine and maternal.
Whereas, heavy, solid and immoveable materials have a masculine aesthetic and
consequently therefore, have a male reference to them (McGrath, 1987, 255).
It is evident that females have managed to subvert ‘the maleness of sculpture’ (McGrath,
1987, 255) and male homogeneity by combining the materials. Essentially merging
materials that are linked with female domesticity and the crafts with materials intrinsically
linked with the history and the production of classical sculptures, they can be seen to be
producing an ‘in-between’ medium which is both masculine and feminine. Cornelia Parker
for example, brings together disparate materials, using cast plaster and cloth within her
works, combining solidarity and flexibility (McGrath, 1987, 255).

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Another female artist known for uniting masculine and feminine materials and contexts
within her work is Louise Bourgeois, an American sculptor, painter and printmaker of
French birth, whose art practice spanned across many decades, was able to inject feelings
and memories into an art object. Although sculpture is linked to ‘maleness’, Bourgeois was
able to use materials which also had a feminine or soft quality to them such as latex for
example.
In the text Introduction: Sculpture as Symptom part of The Return of the Repressed by
Philip Larratt-Smith, Louise Bourgeois in conversation about sculpture answered:
“Why sculpture – because –the experiences reached when working are the
deepest and most significant […] Sculpture is the others or rather clay is the
others and the sculptor is the ego. These are situations concrete and precise”
(Larratt-Smith, 2012).
My interpretation of this quote is that Bourgeois attempts to turn these repressed feelings,
which are not tangible, into the physical and the real world. To make something physical
is to bring it to the forefront of the mind and come to terms with the once supressed
memories and desires.
Fused into Bourgeois’ practice is both the process of sculpture and psychoanalysis. ‘The
Destruction of the Father, 1974’ an installation featuring a table covered in latex moulds,
in a womb-like room, evoking masculine and feminine imagery of gendered body parts such
as: the sagging and bulging forms which suggest the penis and the breast. Bourgeois being
‘desperate for equilibrium, mental and physical [she made] art which for her [was] a
psychoanalytic process of weaving together opposites’ (Larratt-Smith, 2012).

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Bourgeois’ artwork was directly influenced by her own psychological traumas of childhood
and her father’s infidelity, as well as identity being a very crucial aspect within her art
practice, as a daughter, wife, mother and a female.
‘I have no ego. I am my work. I am not looking for an identity. I have too
much identity.’ – Louise Bourgeois, 1995. (De Zegher, 1996, 135)
Thus, ultimately imbedded within her practice, this quote is signifying her
acknowledgment of the self in her work as key theme. Her personal life is intertwined with
her art making, and that sculpture is her mode of self-expression.
In Larratt-Smith’s book Louise Bourgeois’ account of this artwork was that, it symbolised
children devouring the father ‘in order to bring his reign to an end’ (Larratt-Smith, 2012).
This suggests that there is a regression to a pre-Oedipal phase as outlined by Freud.
However, to consume the father is to ingest and have full control of him, to be one with
him, but is also ‘a symbolic representation of intercourse’.
Fig #2 - The Destruction of the Father, 1974

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‘The anthropomorphic, suggestive, and often grotesque shapes that her
sculptures assume – the female and male bodies are continually reshaped
to be almost unrecognisable, or at least, uncanny – are charged with
sexuality and innocence, and the sometimes disturbing interplay between
the two’ (Chorley, 2015)
Bourgeois here is expressing the inner depths of her psyche, once repressed, formed by these
experiences of paternal betrayal but also of maternal complicity, as her mother knew about
her father’s infidelity with their house nanny however, her mother continued to live in
ignorance for years.
Bourgeois sculpted as a way of making ‘conscious what we all experience unconsciously’,
she was able to inject her repressed feelings into the art object so that we can understand it
(Larratt-Smith, 2012). Louise Bourgeois in a statement had said, “The art scene belonged to
the men and I was invading their terrain” (Speaks, 2011, 1062). Which supports the widely
held view that specifically in the art form largely dominated by the male, she was able to
challenge and subvert expectations of female artists and of women in general, which allows
the viewers to converse about female sexuality and fragility as they viewed her ‘emphatic
sculptures’ (Chorley, 2015). Alternatively, is she subverting the patriarchal order? Is she
doing both? On the other hand, is she doing something that cannot be contained, which we
might call ‘Subversity’?

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SURFACING SEXUALITY AS STRATEGY
UNDERSTANDING SEXUAL DIFFERENCE AND ‘SEXUALITIES’
Turning to another complex term, it is known that this concept of sexuality can be
summarised as someone’s ‘capacity for sexual feelings’ or a ‘person’s sexual preference’
(Colour Oxford English Dictionary, 2002, 641).
To deepen this understanding the relationship between identity and sexuality must be
explored, as there are many different ‘sexualities’, and these highlight the diverse
differences in sexual preference and gender roles.
Theoretically, sexuality has become a contested term, broadly writers fall into two camps,
Essentialism and Social Constructionism. Anne Fausto-Sterling gives an example of an
Essentialist view in her book Sexing the Body when she writes ‘A person with inborn
homosexual tendencies would be homosexual, no matter what historical era’ (2000, 17).
This radical view shows how Essentialism believes human sexual behaviour to be entirely
dependent on inherent characteristics, and not affected by culture and era in which they were
raised. Sexual difference, the division into the binary of male or female, ‘is taken as prior to
social differences which are presumed to be mapped on to, a posteriori, the biological
subject’ (Robinson, 2001, 528).
Helen Cixous, connected to Essentialism, gives thought to cultural impacts on the
individual. It is contested whether she is in fact essentialist as some of her theories
acknowledge and agree with social constructionist views, and falls into avant-garde
feminism (Suleiman, 1990, 11-32).

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The debate about the binary positions relating to gender and sexual difference as shown in
Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed, Cixous argues that,
‘…men’s sexuality, like women’s has been defined and circumcised by
binary oppositions, (active/passive, masculine/feminine), and that
heterosexual relations have been structured by a sense of otherness and fear
created by these absolute binaries’ (2006, 101).
Further highlighting the concept of otherness taken from Freudian writings, where the
female is passive and other. Irigaray in This Sex Which Is Not One (1985) follows Freud
who wrote that ‘all erotic behaviour is masculine and all passive behaviour as feminine’
(Klages, 2006, 106). Unlike most Essentialist positions, Cixous accepts cultural
explanations for the construction of oppositional differences as well as biological inherent
qualities; however, her reliance upon phallocentrism and Freudian theory leaves no account
for any complex changes in society (Bray, 2003, 34).
Fausto-Sterling’s perspective is often critiqued by Social Constructionists, who do tend to
agree to some extent with the biological explanations, however they challenge and reject
the idea of there being an ‘inner truth’ that is ‘uncontaminated by cultural influences’, and
instead believe that sexuality varies due to different cultures and historical periods (Beasley,
2005, 137). Those Social Constructionist thinkers, such as Vance, influenced by
Postmodernism4
also go further to say that there is ‘no essential, undifferentiated sexual
impulse […] which resides in the body due to physiological functioning and sensation’
(Beasley, 2005, 137).
4
Postmodernist theories all argue that there is no objective vantage point outside the social context from
which social life can be accessed or explained. In relation to the self, Postmodernism stresses the fluidity,
and performative quality of identity. (Beasley, 2005, 254)

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Butler goes further and insists that:
‘The body too is a thoroughly cultural product, such that bodily sex and
anatomy itself can be seen in terms of cultural interpretation of gender
difference’ 5
(Beasley, 2005, 101).
This quote challenges the idea that there has always been a ‘man’ and a ‘woman’ by arguing
that the production of these terms to define and classify the bodily and gender differences
must have been a form of social convention.
Other Constructionists or anti-essentialists, such as Simone de Beauvoir would agree with
Butler that the natural is a construction of the social, and that in this view sexual difference
is ‘discursively produced’ (Robinson, 2001, 528).
Kimmel and Plante (2004) argues that a person’s sexual experiences and expressions cannot
be compartmentalised and no one type of sexuality is more natural than others, it is widely
known that same-sex and opposite-sex behaviours can be found in virtually all species on
earth (2004, xiii). The work of the women’s movement and the gay and lesbian movement
meant that those identities seen as ‘non-normative are [now] increasingly visible, both
politically and culturally’ (Kimmel and Plante, 2004, xiv). Ever more so in today’s society,
due to the progression of cultural and social acceptance of these issues of identity and gender
since the 1970s.
STRATEGIES OF FEMALE ARTISTS
In the politics of art making, feminist and female artists can be seen to use various strategies
in order to make art that attempts to work towards productive social change and focuses on
‘women’s subordination within patriarchal forms of representation’ (Barry and Flitterman,
5
For other theories by Judith Butler, a Postmodern Feminist writer, see the chapter ‘Postmodern Feminism:
Butler’ in Gender and Sexuality (Beasley, 2005, 98-104)

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1987, 313). This may be by using the body as art, presenting undervalued forms of artisanal
work, or even detaching their gender from their artwork as a refusal and dissent against
feminism that is to be no longer useful for them.
Virginia Woolf writes that
‘Women are coming to be more independent of opinion. […] They are less
interested, it would seem, in themselves; on the other hand, they are more
interested in other women […] Women are beginning to explore their own
sex, to write of women as women have never been written before; for of
course until very lately, women in literature were of creation of men’
(Bovenschen, 1976, 303)
This quote highlights the discourse between women and literature, and the status of
women’s opinion in the 1970’s, however it is a very dated claim and the interests of women
and societal norms will have changed.
Some may argue that ‘Femininity’ demands the presence of a ‘lack of skill and emphasises
nurturance and appreciation of the skills of men’ (Potter, 1987, 291). Linking in with the
Radical Feminist belief that women were the absorber of men’s frustrations, the
breadwinner of the family, in order for them to be able to use their skills and return to their
jobs a productive worker and be able to provide money for the home. This idea of a ‘lack
of’ successfully shows us how women have therefore been denied access to the skill sets
they want and as a result have had their own skills under-appreciated and denigrated.
’Success’ for women often means gaining the precarious position of token achiever in a
male dominated profession. (Potter, 1987, 291)
This section will explore strategies used in women’s art to claim back the realm the feminine
that has been so ‘negatively caricatured’ (Potter, 1987, 291). Strategies that focus on the

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female body, on their sexualities, reproduction and sometimes menstruation, which is
predominantly unmentionable. The making visible, indeed unavoidable, by documentation
of these ‘myths’ and taboos.
Others may attempt to revert the male gaze, by allowing the female nude to have a voice
and ‘break the silence of centuries’ (Potter, 1987, 291). Another strategy is to flip the female
stereotypes; by understanding how they work, they can turn them against themselves.
Alternatively, women may attempt to contradict the stereotypes and find ‘ways out of the
representation of women as passive and incompetent’ (Potter, 1987, 291).
One of these strategies is using the body as art. A good example of using the body as art is
the work of Hannah Wilke. Wilke’s strategy of producing body art for example is able to
subvert patriarchal culture that oppresses the woman, by ‘encouraging women’s self-esteem
through valorisation of female experiences and bodily processes.’ (Barry and Flitterman,
1987, 313).
In S.O.S. Starification Object Series: An Adult Game of Mastication 1974-75, a series of
self-portraits, she is doing various poses; seen playing with the glasses displaying an
extremely suggestive open mouthed offer, a more abstract pose which could be related to
the pose of a model selling her jeans or in this case her vagina which she covers herself with.
Another where her hands spread over her face attracting and inviting the male gaze,
additionally there is one where the turning of the back is suggesting a more picturesque
image to display her vagina laden back. A further where she is fully clothed with her head
back looking flirtatious and in control, and finally in this image shown below she is barely
wearing an apron with a pair of glasses, resembling a ‘hippie’ aesthetic.
The patterning of the vaginal shaped chewing gum pieces, across and down the middle of
her torso, can be likened to body art found amongst many cultures. Perhaps like possible

20
tribal markings, and she continues to play with these, marking her body, on her cheeks, and
removing some of these from her stomach area in a few of the images, they are moveable
but are strategically placed.
Hannah Wilke’s depiction of female genitalia remains significant, as it is an attack against
the male supremacy shown visually through the symbol of the phallus and other masculine
totems. It attempts to combat the idea of women’s genital as ‘mysterious, hidden, unknown,
an ergo threatening’ which is evident in H.R. Hayes’ ‘The Dangerous Sex’, which is a prime
example of the prejudices against females as ‘unclean Pandoras with evil boxes, or agents
of the devil sent to seduce and trap men’ (Rose, 1974, 576).
Middleman in Rethinking Vaginal Iconology suggests that Wilke’s early phallic and labial
sculptures, when re-examined with a number of New York exhibitions dedicated to erotic
Fig. #1 - S.O.S. Starification Object Series: An Adult Game of Mastication 1974-75

21
art in the 1960s, constitute a more radical approach to female sexuality and are seen to be a
‘provocative alternative to the imagery produced by male artists at the time’ (Middleman,
2013, 34-35).
Wilke’s motives are unclear with these images however, as she objectifies herself for the
voyeur and ‘male gaze’ but also alters her face and body with vaginal shaped chewing gum
pieces to challenge the ideology of female sexuality, ‘she is both the stripper and the stripped
bare’ (Barry and Flitterman, 1987, 315). In using her own body as the content of her art,
and calling her art ‘Seduction’, it appears complicated as her artwork begins to reinforce
what it initially intended to subvert (Barry and Flitterman, 1987, 315).
Wilke argues that her work is about ‘respecting the objecthood of the body’ using her torso
in the S.O.S Starification Object Series as a canvas, she is asserting her existence, she bares
her naked body but also presents it as ‘the nude, a sculptural and ideal form’ (Frueh, 1989,
579). Wilke explains that ‘women are ashamed of nudity. To be female and sexual is
forbidden. If you show your body and are proud of it, it frightens people’ (Frueh, 1989,
579). Although Wilke’s work defines women’s bodies as powerful but also victims of
objectification, women, such as Mary Kelly (1983), continue to argue that using a woman’s
body in art is ‘problematic for feminism’ (Frueh, 1989, 580)
It is problematic because artists could be re-fetishizing the ‘the already sexualised female
body’ and with reference to Sigmund Freud’s theory, females anatomical difference
‘ensures women’s inferiority’ (Frueh, 1989, 580). Therefore, for Wilke to display the female
body and genitalia within her self-portrait female nudes, it is working against the demands
of feminism as stated by Muriel Dimen (1984) to ‘no longer focus on [women’s] erotic
attributes’. However Dimen also writes that these imperatives of Feminism are
contradictory as ‘women should be sexual explorers, yet they should let go of traditional

22
eroticism’ (Frueh, 1989, 580). Wilke is attempting to validate the female body, and by
producing a positive image of the female body, she explains that it is attempting to ‘wipe
out the prejudices, aggression and fear associated with the negative connotations of pussy,
cunt, box’ (Frueh, 1989, 580).
Wilke is able to liberate her body allowing the male gaze to take place however by attaching
the scar-like vaginal objects she is empowering the vagina and essentially making women
aware of their own bodies. This defies the Freudian doctrine of penis envy, where all women
at a young age begin to feel like they are lacking something, the penis, the signifier of power
and superiority. This is explained in his theory of the castration-complex (Parker and
Pollock, 1987, 130), because women may learn from Hannah Wilke’s work that the vagina
is superior. By marking her own body with the female genitalia it then signifies power and
dominance, due to the links with tribal markings for example, which aim to indicate rank
and social standing within various cultures.
Her work therefore is similar to various propaganda, aiming for sexual equality. Some artists
such as Sylvia Sleigh have gone as far as turning the objectification onto men, in her nude
paintings of male critics, but this is according to Rose extremely problematic and doesn’t
solve the inferiority of the ‘Second Sex’ by inflicting inequality onto the ‘other’ sex. (1974,
577).
A second strategy in feminist artistic practice aims to present a kind of artisanal work, often
under-valued and overlooked by the dominant systems of representation. This form of sub-
cultural resistance is evident in the valorisation of ‘the crafts’, previously shown in Chapter
2.2 ‘Femininity and the history of the crafts’, the ‘unsung province’ of women’s art activities
(Barry and Flitterman, 1987, 315). Aiming to re-stimulate women’s creativity as a new
mode of expression, renovating the history of female productivity frequently hidden in

23
artistic practice and within the gallery structure, often due to the crafts being considered the
‘other’ dominated by other art forms.
Barry and Flitterman explain that ‘By redefining art to include crafts and previously
neglected skills avoids the ideological distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultural forms.’
Further emphasising how the patriarchal distinctions have served to restrict the creative
avenues for women (1987, 315-316) which is typically an Essentialist position asserting the
view that women have an inherent creativity unrecognised by the mainstream culture, and
therefore has ‘limited ability to transform the structural conditions’ (Barry and Flitterman,
1987, 315-316). It is acknowledged that this type of contribution to feminist art making is
important; however it can be argued that it remains a self-contained subcultural resistance
and is therefore not in dialect with the male dominated culture. ‘A possible consequence is
the ghettoization of women’s art in an alternative tradition’ (Barry and Flitterman, 1987,
315-316), and will therefore remain one of many marginalised domains in art practice.
A third strategy in contemporary practice refuses that the production of their art is
‘embedded in a social context or that art-making is a form of social practice’. For these
women, feminism is no longer useful for them. Total equality for them means the lack of
attachment of their gender or sexuality to their work. Elaine de Kooning in dialogue with
Rosalyn Drexler (1971) stated that:
We’re artists who happen to be women or men among other things we happen
to be – tall, short, blonde, dark, mesomorph, ectomorph, black, Spanish,
German, Irish, hot-tempered, easy-going – that are in no way relevant to our
being artists. (Barry and Flitterman, 1987, 318).

24
Equality to them means that their work is able to stand-alone and speak for itself without
needing a social context, and this quote successfully highlights all the other things, which
should not contribute to the reading of their artwork.
SEXING SCULPTURE
Looking at the inequalities and gender differences surrounding sexuality and art, sex in
mainstream culture is taboo especially surrounding women and female sexuality. The
pornographic industry for example is a way for women to express their sexuality with the
masses, and inform the audience that women have the same level of sexual drive as their
male counterparts. Access to birth control for women has enabled them to own their
sexuality and have vital control over their contraception (Kimmel and Plante, 2004, xiv) but
if women are outspoken about their sexual desires and sexual relationships they can be
branded labels such as ‘slags’ or ‘sluts’. This highlights the difference in representations of
sexual drive for the two genders.
The Women’s Movement, predominantly in the 1970s, has helped drop the taboo of female
sexuality in today’s society, but it is definitely still present, for example in reality TV shows
such as ‘Geordie Shore’, many of the men are applauded for their active sex lives, whereas
some females are shamed for reciprocating this behaviour. At the other end of the scale, if
a woman does not express her intimate desires as much as others she is considered a prude
or is labelled ‘frigid’, it is labels like these that need to become removed completely from
our culture. Many female artists are therefore attempting or have tried to subvert this
negative stereotyping of the sexually aware female and the ideology of the feminine ideal.
A female artist who aimed to sex sculpture and to bring sexuality to the foreground of
mainstream culture is Kusama. Yayoi Kusama, an artist often linked to the domestic, and

25
especially in relevance to her first complete environment, ‘Aggregation: One thousand
Boats Show, 1963’ (De Zegher, 1996, 151). Kusama constructed stuffed fabric phalli,
swarmed entirely over objects such as the boat and other objects like a ladder and a chair in
other works; merged the domesticated craft of stitching with sex. Particularly interested in
the obsessive repetition, Kusama’s work repeatedly includes the multiple, if that were polka
dots and patterns, or phallic shaped objects in her environment pieces. Aggregation: One
thousand Boats Show, 1963 is interesting as each of her penis-like protuberances are seen
as a collective mass before they are seen as individual objects, these swarms of phallic forms
are all varied, but are ‘more alike than their underlying forms are unlike’ (De Zegher, 1996,
150).
Kusama explains that she had a dislike to the male genitalia, and that this stemmed from
witnessing her father’s extra-marital affairs.
“I don’t like sex. I had an obsession with sex, […] when I was a child, my
father had lovers and I experienced seeing him. My mother sent me to spy
on him. I didn’t want to have sex with anyone for years” (Piling, 2012).
In this particular room environment, which is part of her sex-obsessional series, she even
has herself photographed nude amongst it. Similarly with Bourgeois both artists are creating
work which stems from personal experiences with sex and infidelity in particular with these
two artist’s, and this is significant because self-expression of a female’s relationship with
sex was not as welcomed as it is today in western culture (Frueh, 1989, 580).

26
Kusama does involve her body within her One Thousand Boats Show piece, using the body
as art as Wilke does, although she positions herself at the far end, in between the wall and
the boat, remaining quite detached from the camera, deflecting the gaze unlike Hannah
Wilke. She becomes lost in this sea of ‘maleness’, as the boat nearly swallows her up,
surrounded by these images repeated on the floor and walls. Some might suggest that this
contributes to the theory that she was afraid of men, and had a fear of masculinity. This
makes me feel like this was an expression of her feeling alone in America, dominated by
the masculine environment. Kusama’s exposure and openness of her already marginalised
self, is both an enactment and the effect of the sexual revolution and anti-war movements
as well as the women’s movement (Jones, 1998, 572).
Fig. #3 - Aggregation: One thousand Boats Show, 1963

27
FEMALE SEXUALITY AND SHOCK
Various artists such as Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro and Hannah Wilke all caused
controversy, as the art historian Lisa Tickner explains through ‘Vagina Iconology’, that
depicting the female genitalia in art is a political act against the norm, attempting to
overshadow the phallus, rather than being an erotic gesture (Defares, 2014).
Alternatively, in contemporary society today, women are not as unaware of their own bodies
to the same extent as they were in the 20th
century. Easy access to hard porn on mobile
devices and conflicting messages sent to women mean that many of them have a
troublesome relationship with their own sexual identities. They can view porn on demand
just like males can and have active sex lives, but as artist Polly Norton explains
“To make things even more confusing, our society also teaches females that
being too sexual is shameful and vulgar. We should look available, but not
too easy; we should be flirty, but not too forward; we should have sex, but
not with too many people and so on” (Yasmin, 2015).
Thus highlighting the conflicting messages that society instructs upon the young females
of this generation.
Norton is a recent graduate from Loughborough University in 2011 and her work delves
into female sexual identities using illustration. Voicing her opinion of recent gender issues
through writing sparks various negative discussions, she explains, “People take what they
want from an image but words are very concrete” (Yasmin, 2015). One of her illustrations
called ‘Cba 2 Pretend No More, 2015’ depicts the devil, which is a recurring motif within
her work, to symbolise the darker sides of her characters (Yasmin, 2015). The woman is
removing her body suit, the one she must wear in society to hide her inner true self.

28
Targeting these illustrations at teenage females, her intention is not to shock anyone, this
work is working at a different level, whilst still trying to subvert the taboo around female
sexuality it is also working to represent how females feel battling the conflicting messages
of day-to-day life, being a sexually aware female in today’s society.
Fig #4 - Cba 2 Pretend No More, 2015

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CONCLUSION
SEXUALITY AS SUBVERSION: HOW ARE FEMALE ARTISTS IN CONTEMPORARY ART
PROVOKING ‘SUBVERSITY’ ALONGSIDE THE IDEOLOGY OF FEMININITY WITHIN THEIR WORK?
This thesis has demonstrated that female artists in contemporary art have and are still
currently using various strategies to subvert what might be a commonly understood notion
of the feminine alongside the ideology of ‘femininity’ within their work. This could be, as
previously visited, through using the body as art, the chosen medium and even process of
making art, such as Bourgeois and the ‘maleness’ of sculpture, or Kusama and the stuffing
of her phalluses in Aggregation: One thousand Boats Show (1963), in which she connects
the obsession with sex and crafts.
Alternatively, intertwined within various works, such as Cba 2 Pretend No More (2015) an
illustration by Norton, and Wilke’s series of self-portraits (1974-75), charged with notions
of gender politics, they both attempt to challenge the representation of the female body and
sexuality. The philosophical interpretations of gender and sexuality have been useful in
understanding the construction and relevance of these key terms, such as femininity and
sexuality, within the works of the artists’ mentioned within this thesis.
The strategies of surfacing sexuality have developed since the 1970s and this is evident
within the work of much more recent artworks by female artists much like Polly Norton.
Her strategy is clear, as she uses illustration to combat the shock of female sexuality.
Portraying the ‘masquerade’ of young women today so explicitly, allowing the viewer to
form their own opinion of her crude but thought provoking drawings, it is still evidently
using the body as art, which has been a reoccurring strategy through the decades following
the 1970s.

30
The correlation between the strategy of sexuality and shock is still interesting today, and
remains relevant to women. It is working in different ways, but perhaps it is working to do
different things, not working in the same ways as it was in the 1970s but it is still being
subversive nonetheless and perhaps this is due to the change in our conditions.
With societal conditions ever changing, our current terms to describe the complexity of
women’s practice may no longer be sufficient. What is considered subversive changes
drastically over time due to social changes, as well as the norms and values of a society.
‘To subvert is to intent, to experiment, to map…’ (Parker and Pollock, 1987, 51), this
however is an old definition, and in order to assist the understanding of subversion in a
contemporary art context I have constructed the word ‘Subversity’. The -ity added to a
word to form a noun denoting a state or quality (The Chambers Dictionary, 2007).
I propose that this new term, ‘Subversity’, can help us to understand this state of awareness
that one learns. Instead of it just being a position against something, it is a continual motion.
With reference to identity, gender and politics, ‘Subversity’ enables one to act, be proactive
and in due course subversive against these issues of female representation rather than to be
passive.
‘Limited to practicing art with a needle and thread, women have
nevertheless sewn a subversive stitch – managed to make meanings of their
own in the very medium intended to inculcate self-effacement.’ (Parker,
1996, 215).
Subversity is a state of awareness, and this could mean in this case of females and their
relationship with the crafts, such as needlework, and awareness of the marginalised domains
within contemporary art, all still relevant today. Gallery representation of female artist’s in
general is still slowly progressing.

31
We have seen many attempts specifically by artists to subvert the dominant culture,
specifically the work done by women in the 1970s such as the protest demonstrations in
1975 outside the Hayward Gallery, which gave rise to the exhibition ‘1978 Hayward
Annual’ where the minority were males, 16out of 23 were females (Walker, 2002, 226).
This work is still ongoing, for example in a recent news article on the Saatchi Gallery’s up
and coming exhibition featuring female artists exclusively, it states that according to The
East London Fawcett group, ‘out of 134 commercial London galleries in 2013, only 31% of
the artists displayed were women.’ (Loughrey, 2016). Although weaker today for these
artists, Segal’s ‘Glass Ceiling’ is still present and some female artists and curators are still
working to combat this. The Guerrilla Girls, for example began campaigning in 1985 but
are still trying to create changes for the inequality in gallery representation for female artists
today (Guerrilla Girls, 2016).
Returning to the feminine and the state of ‘Subversity’, I will conclude with a quote from
Suleiman’s Subversive Intent: Gender Politics and the Avant-Garde,
‘In a system in which the marginal, the avant-garde, the subversive, all that
disturbs and “undoes the whole” is endowed with the positive value, a
woman artist who can identify those concepts with her own practice and
metaphorically with her own femininity can find in them a source of strength
and self-legitimisation’ (1990, 17).

32
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