Which images and roles were acceptable and which were outside the norm?
Women Creating Culture
Prior to beginning work on this assignment, review Did Women Have a Renaissance? e. and From 1971: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? rr Also watch The Story of Women and Art: Episode 3.
For this assignment, you will examine women’s contributions to the creation of culture in western society through a discussion of three key figures (artists, poets, writers, dancers, performers, composers, etc.) from our required or recommended resources. In your paper, you will also analyze how western society has shaped these women’s lives and their creativity.
Begin by selecting three key figures from different time periods and different genres who have made artistic contributions to our culture. You may either consider these elements separately as explained below or weave the ideas together as you discuss each of your key figures. Having selected your three key figures, analyze how their creativity made important contributions to culture in their own era and in some cases, how their contributions reverberated to different disciplines and different eras and time periods, perhaps even being felt today. You should provide detailed discussion of examples from their creative work (paintings, poetry, performance, methods of dance, music, etc.) to support your claim on the importance of their contributions. This section must be three to four pages in length.
Next, as you examine how society has shaped these women’s lives and creativity, consider some of the following questions.
How did prescribed gender roles for women impact their creativity?
What images defined women (seductress, mother, virgin, etc.)?
Which images and roles were acceptable and which were outside the norm?
How did these narrowly-defined gender roles and images (such as the “nature of women”) shape the lives and work of your three key figures?
Some women may have outwardly conformed to these expectations while their work challenged the roles/images in subversive and creative ways while others openly rebelled. As you delve deeper into these issues, consider the dynamics of gender and power in creative expression. For example, how does the subject matter in paintings and texts (or performance) reflect the dynamics of gender and power? Who has privilege? Who has power? How do these creative women sometimes deconstruct (break down) dominant males naftprric whiles rproncto !cling fpmalp pynpripnrp?
