10/17 The Guerilla Girls

I have been fascinated by the Guerilla Girls' movement since I learned about them in a women's studies class freshman year. Who were these women in gorilla masks? How were they so funny?

I've noticed their posters around New York City a few times, and I love what they have to say. Basically, they're feminists who want more equality in the art world. They wear gorilla masks and take the names of dead female artists to remain anonymous and focus the attention on their cause, not themselves. Their posters and advertisements highlight that most of the artists in major museums are white men. They also note that film awards often go to white men. They pretty much shout these statistics out in their posters, and by doing so, they call for social change.

The Guerilla Girls event, or demonstration, at the Jorgensen Center for Performing Arts at UConn included a video introduction of various Guerilla Girls in protests and just doing wacky things around cities with their posters and how much their work has raised awareness. Then they talked about their books and laid out some more statistics, always using humor. They asked the audience members to raise their hands if they would call themselves a feminist, and they got an overwhelmingly majority of hands and cheers - though, most of the people who would see them, especially when you had to buy tickets, would already be fans. The fact is, few people want to call themselves feminists because the word has such a negative connotation. A lot of people think that the word "feminist" applies to radical feminists or man-haters, but really, a feminist supports women and issues like the right to choose an abortion, equal pay for equal work and equal representation in career fields.

My favorite line of the night came when they showed a color-coded threat-level chart, much like the one that is used for the state of our national security. In this case, they offered levels of women's rights security. One of the highest threats included the government believing that abstinence was the best form of contraception and only teaching this in schools. In response to reading this one out loud, one of the Guerilla Girls said, "and let's not elect a vice president who believes this." On the Palin issue, while they didn't seem happy with Palin calling herself a "feminist," one of them did note that Palin has never apologized for being both a politician and a mother, which is a good thing.

The event was just a fun time, filled with laughs about stereotypical dolls and expectations of women, and I left feeling pretty good about being a feminist.