Gender Roles, Subject, & Power

Berthe Morisot, Psyche, 1876

The expected roles of women in Europe during the Middle ages were unfortunately restricted to domestic duties like caring for their children and husbands. The responsibilities of women during the middle ages were seen as “feminine” tasks such as cleaning, preparing food, making clothing, working along side any male owned business and simply serving to their husbands needs. Women were also not allowed to own any property and were viewed entirely as an object their husbands controlled and owned. This style of living was brought upon by prior religious societies, “The Church’s hierarchical organization reinforced the class distinctions in society; its patriarchal dogma included a full set of theories on the natural inferiority of women which can be traced back to ancient Greece and the Old Testament” (Chadwick, 44). The priority of being a mother was held higher than the priority of a woman expressing themselves in their own individual ways. However, few women chose to express themselves through creating art. Moving forward, the roles of women in the 19^th century were tremendously defined. Education among women and young girls were presented more often and was encouraged among them. However, this education was not like the education men would receive, their education was focused on “feminine” subjects like singing, dancing, language and drawing. Which led to more women of the 19^th century to discovering their passion of painting, drawing, and creating art like men would. Photography helped pave a path for women to join the art world without being excluded entirely since it was a new style of practice. Rosa Bonheur was one of the woman artists during this time who had to fight to be taken seriously, her father being an artist and a believer of gender equality pushed her in the right direction to becoming a successful woman artist. The text book states she “made a fortune selling her paintings and the rights to make engraving from them and was able to buy a large château…”(Guerilla Girls 48). This showed how the progression of women artists and foreshadows the potential of success women had as artists. Despite the progress of women during this time, men were still in the constant belief that they had rights over women. Due to this mentality of men, women still dealt with a great amount of physical and verbal pressure to look and be a certain way. A woman’s physical attributes and general appearance were still looked at carefully by most. This repression is present in many female artists works such as Berthe Morisot and her painting, Psyche. The title of the painting itself refers to psychological state of a woman in society. The painting depicts a woman viewing herself in a large body mirror in a negative manner, representing the literal way most women would view their bodies.

 Works Cited:

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Langara College, 2016.

Guerilla Girls. The Guerilla Girls' beside Companion to the History of Western Art.

Rosa Bonheur, The Horse Fair, 1887