Proceedings of The 5th World Conference on Research in Social Sciences
Year: 2023
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/5th.socialsciencesconf.2023.02.102
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The Path to Womanhood: An Analytical and Historical Study on Feminism and Feminist Art History
Reihaneh Hosseini
ABSTRACT:
Throughout history, the negligence towards women and prohibition of practicing their basic rights have cast a shadow on their achievements and triumphs. The lack of female-oriented narrative and acknowledgment of their presence in pivotal events in history mispresented them as the inferior of the sexes. With their lives dictated to them by the ruling powers, and the opportunity to be considered as part of their respective societies gone astray, women were not permitted to develop a sense of identity and individuality for centuries. However, the mid-nineteenth century marked a revolutionary period in women’s history through a movement that would later establish substantial changes in their lives, known as the Feminist movement. To have their voices heard and messages spread, feminist artists became the main advocators of feminism and through their artistic innovations and transparency towards womanhood, they shed light on matters history failed to correspond to until the 1970s. To be able to understand the chronological context of these pivotal changes, this paper aims to give a historical overview and response to the following questions: 1- what is feminism? 2- how did Feminist art come to be?, and 3- how did feminism and Feminist art change the conception of art in the art world? To answer the former questions, the author aims to use the qualitative historical-analytical research method through the study of historical and theoretical literary works in English of the said period collected from libraries in Hungary and other open resources.
keywords: Women, History, Liberation, Art history, Women’s Rights