Thesis: Underexposed Idols
Surface acts as a physical archive of the psychological. Through surface, the ephemeral is maintained, managed, and shared to spark new ideas and understanding. Through that process, surface can be manufactured, manipulated, censored, or destroyed to speak false truths or otherwise elude to something else, influencing the viewer’s interpretation.
This is true with archives of people too. History remembers great men for their accomplishments while also turning a blind eye to their less favorable rhetoric towards women. Those aspects of their character cause harm, especially given the stature of these men. Through them sexism and misogyny thrive. Instead of reviewing them as a whole, we (historians, followers, the uninformed, etc.) choose to focus on the good that they do in an attempt to rationalize our censorship of their often-harmful influence. We pretend that the good outweighs the bad.
Take for example, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi led a movement that ultimately provided civil liberties for many disenfranchised people under British rule in India (unless you were a woman). Despite that, parts of his legacy still negatively affect India today, specifically his rhetoric towards women and rape. Gandhi believed that women were at fault for any sexual harassment or violence they experienced. That belief is still relevant today in India. In recent years, a university there banned women from wearing jeans after a female student was raped. It was jeans they banned because, as they explained, Western clothing makes women more tempting to men. This response echoes an incident that Gandhi responded to in much of the same way involving one of his female followers. After being harassed by some men, Gandhi cut off the woman’s hair to make her less tempting to other men as well. Despite this and many additional accounts of his often-sexist beliefs, Gandhi is remembered as a symbol of peace and freedom. This is just one of many cases like this throughout history; we idolize the successes made by these men while ignoring their often damaging indiscretions. We lie about their character through omission of their faults.
So, what’s with these posters? Each of the first nine contains drafted statements that represent true beliefs held by these men. Through the process of screen-printing, choice words in these statements are under exposed, causing the words to distort or otherwise disappear once the screen is rinsed, creating an entirely new meaning to each message. The surface, or the archive in this case, is manipulated in order to read in a more preferable light (something that happens everyday). Truth be damned.
But the truth is still important, so here it is:
1. Gandhi defended that women who were raped or experienced sexual violence had lost their value.
2. Darwin described that the law of inheritance i.e. genetics kept women from becoming equal to men.
3. T.S. Eliot decided that there were no female authors who were worth printing.
4. Martin Luther said God was clear: women were meant to be either wives or prostitutes.
5. Plato decided that men who lived as lazy cowards would be reincarnated as women.
6. John Wayne deemed that women were free to work wherever they wanted as long as dinner was ready when he got home.
7. St. Augustine explained that women were nothing more than man’s helpmate.
8. Buddha believed that women were much less teachable than men.
9. Aristotle wrote of women being better than slaves but still unequal to men.
For each word or part of a word omitted, a women’s name is added in resistance. These women may have lived through and been affected by these statements, but their lives also proved these statements to be untrue biases towards women. This is just a beginning however, there are still names to be added and more progress to be made in gender equality