Lateral inversion: Female Masculinities and Male Femininities
Anni Kumari
Paper presented at the National Queer Conference 2015, Sappho for Equality and Jadavpur University
Abstract: I am interested in exploring the idea of “Female Masculinities and Male Femininities” within the larger context of experienced/ observed and inferred perspectives about gender and sexuality. Being a visual artist, my referential point of inquiry is based in the visual context, with a conscious position of “relational aesthetics” or dialogic approach. My paper would hence include a re-reading of cultural /ideological/ sociological connotations with respect to visual samples located in the personal, community and public domains. I am particularly intrigued by the idea of how the neo-liberal market economy and its powerful tools of advertisement and mass media play a role in propagating, patronizing and typifying gender roles within the family and society. Contrastingly, with the rising number of working women, especially in the urban context, there seems to emerge a “trans-gender” category of professionals who are playing roles that might be outside the ascribed “feminity-masculinity” attributes. For example, a women bus/truck/train driver; policewomen; a woman who works at the petrol pump; women who work as security personnel etc are usually associated with adjectives like “bold”, “strong” , “tough” . These words initiate a visualization process that borders onto the male gender-roles. On the other hand men who are into professions like catering, fashion and glamour industry, tailoring or dress designing are usually seen as those with a hint of femininity. My paper would trace these “bordering or transgressing” tendencies in the context of contemporary urban work-life temperamental identities. If and whether, these shifts in the otherwise stringent delineation of categories, introduce conducive/ bizarre/profane or unwarranted change in the power dynamics? At what point does the idea of self outgrow the biological/gendered/ sexual periphery to be rooted between “physical and spiritual “reality?
Anni Kumari is a visual artist and researcher based in Delhi. A visiting faculty at the College of Art, Delhi, she lectures in Art History and Criticism to postgraduate students. She studied BFA & MFA (Painting) from College of Art and B.A (Hons) Political Science from Miranda House, Delhi University. A recipient of National Artist Scholarship (2013), Junior Research Fellowship (2011) from Ministry of Culture and University Grants Commission (2014) respectively, her artistic practice is shaped by a research orientation. Located between Political theory and practical training in Painting, her works have been exhibited at the British Council, Alliance Francaise and German Embassy in Delhi, Kolkata Short Film Festival and the United Nations Exhibition Program, USA. Anni has been a part of several national artist residencies, workshops and camps.
Image 1: Boxer Mary Kom, an Olympic Bronze medalist Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2243631/FEMAIL-Independentconfident-focused-Indian-women-ditching-conventional-careers-carve-niche-male-dominatedprofessions.html
Introduction: From the stand-point of artist as a theorist, my paper represents ideas through images that bear reference to the “trans” domain of male feminities and female masculinities. Critiquing the ideas of beauty, body, gender and sexuality, the focus is how otherness is constructed visually on the gendered, racialized, objectified, sexualized body. Female, feminity, she-male, chick, babe, macho, masculinity and dude are apparently narrow and to a large extent oblivious constructs. In the context of contemporary urban work-life temperamental identities, an image of the Olympic Bronze medalist, Boxer Mary Kom, exemplifies a sense of “alterity” for the obvious contrast of boldness and delicacy. If and whether, these shifts in the otherwise stringent delineation of categories, introduce conducive/ bizarre/profane or unwarranted change in the power dynamics? At what point does the idea of self outgrow the biological/gendered/ sexual periphery to be rooted between “physical and spiritual “reality?
Image 2: Dr. Sarika Mehta from Gujarat, who leads the Bikerni group. The Bikerni is India's first and largest all women motorcycle association with a presence in all the major cities of India. Source: http://www.rushlane.com/triumph-motorcycles-india-young-buyers-custom-12142876.html
Image 3: Prema Ramappa Nadapatti is the only female BMTC bus driver-cum-conductor in Bangalore.
Source: http://www.thebetterindia.com/12401/women-dared-break-mould-took-unconventional-careerpaths/
Cross-dressing by famous Bollywood actors, reveals some interestingly perplexing, bizarre, hilarious and satirical outcome. Outward, Superficial and temperamental is indeed the portrayal, understanding and judging of the sexes. Trickery by a makeup artist can play havoc with our sense of categorization,
typification and delineation. Intriguingly, the neo-liberal market economy and its powerful tools of advertisement and mass media play a role in propagating, patronizing and typifying gender roles within family and society. Consummerization favors a particular standard of beauty. There are biases about looks, dressing, styling and even skin types.
American-born Indian actor (and a dark-skinned woman) Sharon Muthu1 writes –“I have spent my entire life hearing about how "Fair is Beautiful." I have listened to our community elders caution their children to "stay out of the sun before you get too dark." I have watched Indian women (and men) buy creams and scrubs, promising better beauty by virtue of lighter skin. I have witnessed my fellow Indian youth stare in the mirror over the years and dislike the face staring back, because they too have begun to judge their own beauty and self-worth by the shade of their skin.” Sharon Muthu wrote this text for Tamil Culture.com as part of Dark is Beautiful, an awareness campaign that seeks to draw attention to the unjust effects of skin colour bias and also celebrates the beauty and diversity of all skin tones. It campaigns against the toxic belief that a person's worth is measured by the colour of their skin. Launched in 2009 by Women of Worth, the campaign challenges the belief that the value and beauty of people (in India and worldwide), is determined by the fairness of their skin. This belief, shaped by societal attitudes and reinforced by media messages, is corroding the self-worth of countless people, young and old.
Skin colour bias exists in every community, but I am especially concerned with the way it
permeates my South Asian community. And, I have an even more intimate understanding of this issue
as an actress in Hollywood. We, in our own Indian media and entertainment, had never clearly shown them that Indian people come in a variety of shades. Historically, our Indian society has been so ashamed of dark skin that we have painstakingly shown the Western world only our fairest and lightest-skinned leading Bollywood actresses.
Image 12: Sarah Lucas works at display at the Venice Biennale, 2015
Sarah Lucas (born 1962) is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour, and include photography, collage and found objects.
Looking back at art history as a referential point for evaluating how deep rooted are our ideological
delineations related to gender. Sarah Lucas’ 2show at the 2015 Venice Biennale entitled, I SCREAM
DADDIO is said to “reprise and reinvent the themes that have come to define her powerfully irreverent art – gender, death, sex, and the innuendo residing in everyday objects.” The show revolves around themes of ‘the body’, featuring Lucas’s characteristic dark humor and confrontation. “Humor is about negotiating the contradictions thrown up by convention. To a certain extent, humor and seriousness are interchangeable. Otherwise it wouldn’t be funny. Or devastating.” – Lucas
The questioning of convention, and highlighting the absurdity of normality, is probably the most
exciting part of Lucas’s work. Her work makes frequent and sly nods to art historical references;
Picasso’s strange women, Duchamp’s ready-mades and traditional notions of femininity. Lucas is
rearticulating the space surrounding the female subject – not as a space for the mastering gaze, but as
the central focus of differing relationships.
By appropriating masculine constructions, Lucas confronts and dissects them. Instead of portraying the feminine as beauty (as in Manet), Lucas’s work is fuelled by casual misogyny of everyday life. Lucas channels the vernacular of the street – her work is a part of everyday life, coming out of, responding to, and firmly part of it. With Lucas’s past emphasis on the female body, voyeurism, mass-consumption (especially the tabloid press), and a rapidly changing society – the struggles of nineteenth century art and feminist critique thereafter are brought strongly to mind. The French impressionists painted against the dynamic backdrop of newly Haussmanised Paris, attempting to change and alter art historical methods. They may have changed artistic techniques, but gender relationships stayed firmly put. In mid-nineteenth century France, an artistic paradigm shift was occurring; the new modernism. The newly widened boulevards and bustling cafes of Paris provided the setting for the ‘experience of modernity’, quintessentially defined by the writing of Charles Baudelaire and the art of Edouard Manet. But of course, these new spaces of modernity were more simply, the spaces of masculinity. A woman could not experience everyday life as defined by Baudelaire and the modernist school. “The Flâneur” – the perennial voyeur – simply did not have a female counterpart.
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