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Martin Rosenberg and Frances Thurber
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Gender Matters in Art Education

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Martin Rosenberg

Frances Thurber

Gender Matters in Art Education

Davis Publications, Inc., Worcester, Massachusetts

Art Education in Practice Series

Marilyn G. Stewart
Editor

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Martin Rosenberg and Frances Thurber

Gender Matters in Art Education

Series Preface
Follow an art teacher around for a day—and then
stand amazed. At any given moment, the art teacher
has a ready knowledge of materials available for
making and responding to art; lesson plans with
objectives for student learning; resources for extend¬
ing art learning to other subjects; and the capabili¬
ties, interests, and needs of the students in the
artroom. Often working with a schedule that
requires shifting several times a day from working
with students in preschool to those in elementary,
middle, and high school, the art teacher decides
what to teach, how to teach it, whether students
have learned it, and what to do next. The need for
rapid decision making in the artroom is relentless.
The demands continue after school as the art
teacher engages in assessment of student learning,
curriculum planning, organization of materials, and
a wide range of activities within the school commu¬
nity. Although most teachers want to be aware of
and to integrate into their teaching new findings
and developments within their field, they are
pressed to find the time for routine, extensive read¬
ing of the literature.
Art Education in Practice provides the art teacher,
museum educator, student, scholar, and layperson
involved in art education with an overview of signifi¬
cant topics in art education theory and practice. The
series is designed to meet the needs of art educators
who want to know the issues within, the rationales
provided for, and the practical implications of
accepting curricular proposals presented from a vari¬
ety of scholarly and political perspectives.
The emphasis of the series is on informed prac¬
tice. Each text focuses on a topic that has received
considerable attention in art education literature
and advocacy statements, but one that has not
always been accompanied by clear, concise, and
accessible recommendations for the classroom. As
new issues arise, books will be added to the series.
The goal of the series is to complement the profes¬
sional libraries of practitioners in the field of art edu¬
cation and, in turn, enhance the art-related lives of
their students.
Editor's Introduction
As I write this, I am traveling in a large commercial
jetliner piloted by a woman. In an era when a
woman has served as commander of a recent NASA
Discovery mission, the idea of a woman pilot is by no
means surprising. I might not have noticed at all if I
had not been thinking about the importance of gen¬
der issues in art education.
I vividly remember the very first time I learned
that the pilot of a flight I was on was female. I
found myself struggling with my assumptions and
fears about whether a woman really could be as
good a pilot as a man. The image of a woman flying
the large commercial jetliner was inconsistent with
the image I held in my head of a handsome airline
captain found in advertisements, illustrations, and
other potent image sources throughout the culture.
These images and what we learn from them have
staying power capable of transcending our most
cogent, well-informed logic.
As anyone who has shopped for toys will attest,
what is male and what is female might as well be
defined by color. One section of the toy department
is pink—all pink. The other is a combination of
black, purple, and brown-green camouflage.
Assumptions about who should play with which toys
are pervasive. Why, in the early years of the twenty-
first century, do we still carry around and promote
false assumptions about gender roles? Why, after all
the strides we have made in terms of gender equity
in athletics and the workplace, do we abide such
messages?
We might ask similar questions about what hap¬
pens in schools and art classrooms. Why, after all we
have learned about how women artists have been
overlooked and how their artistic work has not been
recognized as valuable or significant, do we still find
programs that focus on the work of white male
artists? Why, after all of the work we have done to
eliminate discrepancies in the way we treat our male
and female students, do we continue to accept and
promote gender stereotypes? How does our teaching
practice reaffirm and promote ill-founded notions
about gender?
Martin Rosenberg and Frances Thurber localize
these and other questions as they ask readers to
reflect on their own gender-related experiences, as
children and as adults, in school and out of school, in
the art classes they have taught and those they have
attended.
Because so much of what we believe and value is
powerfully embedded in the images we carry around
with us, and because one of the best things we do as
art educators is assist our students in critically inter¬
preting the meanings found in images, the authors
highlight the unique opportunity that art educators
have to systematically address gender matters. As we
move through their carefully constructed chapters, we
encounter ideas about what we mean by gender
equity and how we can aim for it in curricular content,
instructional strategies, and classroom management.
The authors have a long history of working
together to assist teachers in making sound decisions
about what and how to teach. I am very pleased that
they have chosen to share the fruits of this fine work
in a text that is part of the Art Education in Practice
series. Their perspectives as feminist art historian, on
one hand, and feminist art educator, on the other,
serve to enrich their vision about what art education
can be and what art teachers can do to ensure that
their students have strong, substantive, and unbiased
experiences with art and visual culture, that they
become critical thinkers who value gender equity,
and that they develop deep appreciation for the
artistic work of all humans today and in the past.
Marilyn G. Stewart
v
Copyright © 2007
Davis Publications, Inc.
Worcester, Massachusetts U.S.A.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy¬
ing, recording, or any storage and retrieval system
now known or to be invented, except by a reviewer
who wishes to quote brief passages in conjunction
with a review written for inclusion in a magazine,
newspaper, or broadcast.

Publisher: Wyatt Wade

Managing Editor: David Coen
Manufacturing: Georgiana Rock
Design: Jeannet Leedertse

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006929812

ISBN 0-87192-745-4
ISBN-13 978-0-87192-745-3

10987654321
Printed in the United States of America
To Ellen, Matt, Val, and Amysue, as well as all other teachers
concerned about gender equity.
—Martin Rosenberg

To my artist grandmothers, Alice Hagerman Thurber and

Maria Antonia D’Agostino, and the feminist legacies they

left to me.
—Frances Thurber
 Contents
ii

Acknowledgments xvi

Authors' Statement xvii

Introduction. xvi ii

C h a p t e r 1
Understanding Gender: In Society, Schools, and the Artroom .... 1

Gender Expectations: How We Treat Boys and Girls. 2

Gender vs. Sex: A Critical Distinction for Teachers. 3

Gender Stereotypes and How We Teach. 4

Assumptions and Misconceptions about Gender:

In Society and Schools. 5

Gender Differences: What Does the Research Really Say? . 7

Differences in Social Behavior . 8

Differences in Cognitive and Perceptual Skills

and Other Behaviors. 9

Studies on Gender and Art Education. 10

Chapter

Gender Matters: Views of Gender and

How They Affect Art Students. 13

Gender Issues in the Art Classroom: How We Teach . 14

Sexual Orientation and Gender. 14

The Impact of Technology . 16

Curriculum and Gender in the Art Classroom . 17

Approaches to Gender Equity in the Artroom. 19

The Separatist Approach . 19

The Integrationist Approach . 19

viii
 The Pluralist Approach . 20

The Social Action Approach . 20

Parallels Found in Approaches to Multiculturalism. 20

Gender in the Artroom: Past and Present . 21

Promoting Individual Achievement Along with Gender Equity. 23

C h a p t e r ^2

Gender Issues in Art and Visual Culture . 27

How Does Gender Affect Our Views of Art? . 28

Art Deemed Worth Studying . 28

How Do Women Appear in Art and in Visual Culture?. 29

Women Artists? What Women Artists?. 30

Common Gender Biases in Art Instruction . 30

Advantages Held by Male Artists. 33

Obstacles Faced by Female Artists. 34

Biases Related to the Nature of Artistic Expression . 36

Thinking about Art vs. Craft. 37

Chapter /

How Do Art and Visual Culture Shape Our Views of Gender? ... 43

Visual Culture and Art Education . 44

Archetypes and Stereotypes in Art Instruction. 44

The Male Perspective Taken as Universal . 48

Art and Popular Imagery Reinforce Feminine Stereotypes. 52

The Roles Images Play in Shaping Our Understanding

of Gender and Sexual Identity . 53

IX
 Chapter 5
Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity 57

Define Art Broadly ..•. 58

Analyze Books for Gender Equity . 58

Fill in Gaps about Women and Art . 59

Attend to Gender Connections to Art Year-Round . 59

Include a Wide Range of Art Media . 59

Highlight Artists' Roles in Diverse Societies . 59

Critique the Canon of Art . 59

Provide Indirect Approaches to Critique the Canon. 59

Directly Critique the Canon of Art. 61

Show Multiple Perspectives . 61

Consider Sexual Orientation as an Aspect of Gender . 61

Seek and Apply Information from Current Research. 63

Consider the Audience . 63

Relate Personal Identity and Artistic Expression. 64

Explore How Gender Affects Artistic Expression . 64

Highlight Gender Through the Lenses of Art Criticism

and Art History . 65

Introduce Ideas Found in Feminist Art Criticism. 65

Inform Students about Influential Female Art Historians . 66

Explore Issues of Context That Shape Content. 66

Pose Challenging Questions. 67

Study the Social Roles of Women Artists. 67

Create Multiple Connections . 67

Rethink Curriculum Approaches . 67

Identify Appropriate Content . 68

Design Substantive Content. 68

x
 Consider Gender Within the Context of Multiculturalism. 71

Increase Our Understanding of Multiculturalism. 72

Include Key Multicultural Concepts in Art Lesson Content. 72

Study Stereotypes and Archetypes . 72

Apply the Lens of Gender. 73

Draw on Content from Students' Own Lives . 73

Chapter C?

Supporting a Gender-Equitable Climate in the Art Classroom . . 77

Teaching Behaviors That Enhance Gender Equity . 78

General Teacher Behaviors. 79

Teacher Behaviors Specific to an Art Classroom. 81

Encourage Student Behaviors That Positively

Affect Gender Equity . 82

General Student Behaviors. 82

Student Behaviors Specific to Art Classrooms. 83

Create a Nurturing Environment. 83

A Classroom Climate That Promotes Equity . 83

A Classroom Climate in Which Student Expectations, Attitudes,

and Behaviors Promote Equity. 84

A Safe Classroom Climate. 84

Design Instructional Activities That Specifically Address Issues

of Gender Equity. 85

Reflective Exercises . 85

Action Exercises. 86

Individual Student Research. 87

Collaborative Research Opportunities. 87

XI
Chapter. 7
Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies . 91

Unit 1 (Grades K-3): "Building Communities: From the Drawing

Board to City Council Decisions" .'. 93

Taking on the Challenge. 95

What Might Students Learn about Gender?. 95

Unit 2 (Grades 4-6): "Faces of the Past: Portraiture as

Documentation of American History and Herstory" . 96

Taking on the Challenge. 97

What Might Students Learn about Gender? . 101

Unit 3 (Grades 7-9): "Unique Social Commentary Through Art:

Giving Voice to Cultural Oppression" . 101

Taking on the Challenge . 101

What Might Students Learn about Gender? . 105

Unit 4 (Grades10-12): "People Across Time and Place

Respond to an Aesthetic That Uses Human Form as a Means
for Creative Expression". 106

Taking on the Challenge . 108

What Might Students Learn about Gender? . 109

Chapter ^

Gender Equity in the Ideal Art Classroom .. 113

Domain I: Actions Teachers Can Take . 115

Domain II: Creating and Maintaining the Right Environment . 115

Domain III: Selecting Meaningful Concepts

for Student Exploration . 117

Resources 122

Women Artists. 122

Practical Curriculum Resource Materials. 125

Resources Found on the Web. 126

National Library of Education: Educational Resources

Information Center (ERIC) Information. 127

Sites for Ordering Art Education Resources and Audio-Visual

Materials about Women Artists. 128

Selected Reproductions, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and Videotapes. 129

Videos/DVDs on Women Who Make Art. 129

Feminist Histories of Art and of Women Artists. 130

Feminist Art Theory and Criticism . 131

Theoretical Issues about Gender and Art Education . 133

Theoretical Issues about Gender and Education . 135

Art, Art Education, and Visual Culture . 136

Appendix—Worksheets. 138

Index.. 149

XIII
 Acknowledgments
This book is the fruit of our work, over many years,
in gender issues in our respective fields of art history
and art education. No one ever completes a project
of this scope without the support of colleagues,
friends, and family. We are grateful for our deep
involvement in the Prairie Visions project in
Nebraska, one of the regional DBAE institute grant
projects supported by the J. Paul Getty Trust, since its
inception in 1987, and we have made gender issues
a particular focus of our work in that project. The
Prairie Visions Institute has given us a living labora¬
tory to explore our ideas about gender, art, and art
education, many of which are in this book. We have
benefited greatly from working very closely with col¬
leagues and friends Gary Day, Michael Gillespie, and
Joanne Sowell of the University of Nebraska at
Omaha, and many K-12 art educators and museum
educators across the state, including the Institute's
faculty, who all worked together to link theory to
practice. We owe a particular debt to the four teach¬
ers, Linda Jorgensen, Linda Weinert, David
Manriquez, and Caroline Schmitz, whose curriculum
work provided the case studies discussed in Chapter
7. We also thank Sheila Brown and Martin Skomal
for their leadership of the Prairie Visions project.
Finally, we thank our university students, with whom
we have shared these ideas over many years.
We offer our deepest appreciation to Marilyn
Stewart, who enthusiastically supported our concept
of a book on gender and art education from the
very beginning and helped us bring it to fruition.
We wish to thank our publisher Wyatt Wade, our
editor David Coen, and the other staff at Davis
Publications for their assistance in the completion of
this project.
XIV
I (Martin) would like to add an additional
acknowledgment to Leilani Lattin Duke, director of
the former.Getty Education Center for the Arts in
Los Angeles for inviting me to serve as the Visiting
Scholar at the Getty Center in 1998-1999, when my
research for this book began. I would also like to
thank my good friends and fellow art historians
Mary Lewis, Mark Thistlethwaite, Beth Schneider,
Linda Hults, and Bernard Barryte, whose interest in
my work has meant so much. My largest debt is to
Dr. Ellen Fennick, my life partner and constant con¬
sultant, and my children Matthew and Valerie, with¬
out whose constant support and understanding this
monumental project could not have been accom¬
plished. Finally, words cannot adequately express my
good fortune at having my dear friend and deeply
respected colleague Frances Thurber as my co-author
and collaborator in the richest sense of the word.
I (Frances) am very grateful to my long-time
friend and co-author Martin Rosenberg, for his vast
knowledge and sensitivity, and for collaborating in a
most marvelous dialogue throughout the prepara¬
tion of this book. I also wish to personally thank
Enid Zimmerman from Indiana University for her
enduring friendship and her mentorship relative to
our research in gender issues and art education over
the years. My sincerest appreciation also goes to my
family, who have supported my work.
Authors' Statement

As a male art historian/educator and as a female

artist/art educator, we have both been profoundly
affected, professionally and personally, by the social
and cultural revolutions that have occurred over the
last thirty years and have contributed to our collec¬
tive beliefs about gender, diversity, art, and art edu¬
cation. Our commitment to gender equity in the
classroom and in society has also been shaped by our
personal experiences of discrimination and stereo¬
typing in our youth as a result of our gender, ethnic¬
ity, social class, and religious beliefs, resulting in our
passionate commitment to contribute to gender
equity and the acceptance of diversity. With this
book, we hope to turn our exploration of these criti¬
cal issues into a professional dialogue with our art
educator colleagues across levels of schooling and
across regions of the country so that, together, we
can move toward a quality art education for our
girls and boys.
Introduction

Why a book about gender and art education? What

does gender have to do with education or art in
general and art education jn particular? Reflect on
your own school experiences. Were the boys and
girls in your classes treated equally? Did you learn as
much about women's contributions to history and
society as men's? How many of your textbooks were
authored by women? For most of us, the answers
would be: "no," "no," and "very few, if any." Did
you learn about women artists? Were images of
their artworks displayed on your classroom walls?
Did you study media, such as quilting or weaving,
that have been primarily associated with women?
Did girls and boys receive equal attention and
encouragement in their creative activities? Again,
for most of us, the answer to all of these questions
would be a resounding no.
If you feel that boys and girls were not treated
equally in classrooms when you were growing up,
your experience has been confirmed by several
decades of observation and research. This research
clearly demonstrates that girls, who make up about
half of most classes, receive less of the teacher's
attention, have fewer opportunities to express them¬
selves, and have fewer and less positive role models
provided for them through the curriculum than do
boys. As Myra and David Sadker have documented,
if our goal is a fair and equitable education for girls
and boys, the schools are truly "failing at fairness."
Since the art classroom places a special emphasis
on individual expression, requiring the acquisition of
a diverse range of skills and dealing with many gen¬
der-related images, it can either contribute to
inequality or provide a potent site for promoting
gender equity.
 This book is based on the assumption that most
teachers believe all children, regardless of gender,
should receive an equitable education. An equitable
education has been defined as one that provides
equal opportunity for all children to receive the edu¬
cation they need and deserve. What can each per¬
son, as an individual in society, as a teacher in
general, and as an art educator, in particular, do to
ensure an equitable education for all our students,
regardless of their gender?
Starting with the most basic questions: What
aspects of your own attitudes about gender, as they
have been shaped by your background, experiences,
and society, do you need to examine? What do
teachers need to understand about gender, art, and
the complex ways they interact in our classrooms
and in society in order to foster gender equity?
What specific changes can teachers make in their
curricula and pedagogy to make their classrooms
more gender equitable? Finally, what are the poten¬
tial benefits to teachers, students, and to society in
promoting gender equity?
No single book can treat every aspect of such a
complex topic. We do hope, however, that this book
will deepen your understanding of critical educa¬
tional and societal issues relating to gender and art
education, while it explores key questions and sug¬
gests strategies with which teachers can make their
art classrooms more truly equitable for girls and
boys. Change is never easy. Moving toward a more
gender-equitable art classroom will probably require
changes in both what and how we teach. Every step
the teacher takes, whether expanding the curricu¬
lum to include women or monitoring the language
used in class for gender bias, is a step in the right
direction. The authors hope this book will inspire
you to embark on or continue your own voyage of
exploration and change as we all work toward the
ultimate goal—an equitable art education for all
students.
As authors, we are certainly not the first to raise
these issues and concerns. Over the last thirty years
in particular, women's studies, feminism, and other
gender-related studies have had a major impact on
most areas of the arts and sciences, from psychology
to biology, art history, and art education.
Unfortunately, the fruits of much of this research
have not been made accessible to the K-12 teachers
of art. This book is one attempt to fill this need by
providing an up-to-date account of key issues in art,
education, and art education, and by drawing on
recent research that has significantly altered our
understanding of all issues of diversity that are of
concern to teachers. The book also provides ways of
moving issues of gender equity from theory into
practice in the art education classroom.
The goal, then, of this book is to provide stu¬
dents, teachers of art and related subjects, university
art educators, and interested laypersons involved in
art education with an up-to-date conceptual, yet
practical understanding of gender and the role it
plays in culture and art education. We provide gen¬
eral discussion of key issues relating to gender and
art education, ideas about content selection, sample
strategies for implementation of curricula, examples
of curricula, worksheets, and a list of resources that
will assist the reader in teaching art in a more
gender-equitable fashion.
The first chapter provides a brief but necessary
overview of the contemporary concept of gender,
not as a biological fact, but as an entity "con¬
structed" by society. We explore common assump¬
tions about gender differences. What does research
reveal about differences between males and females
in general, and in the art classroom? We discuss
XVI
 common assumptions about gender differences and
examine them critically.
Chapter 2 examines considerations of, and
assumptions about, gender in society, in schools, and
especially in the art classroom. We also look at how
gender affects both the way we teach and what we
teach. The discussion includes a review of the special
characteristics of art instruction that increase both
the importance of issues of gender in the art class¬
room, and the range of possibilities for dealing with
these issues in a substantive way.
Chapter 3 presents key theoretical and concep¬
tual issues in relation to gender and art. We describe
important ideas in relation to gender in art instruc¬
tion and discusses how views about gender and art
have evolved, particularly over the last thirty years.
We examine how gender shapes our views of art.
This includes such issues as: how art is defined, who
is considered an artist, what is considered important
art, and what perspectives in art and on art are
valid.
Chapter 4 considers how images shape our con¬
ceptions of gender; what assumptions society makes
about male or female subjects and points of view;
what we mean by describing certain art or qualities
of art as "masculine" or "feminine;" and what
effects conceptions of masculinity and femininity,
which can be so strongly influenced by art instruc¬
tion, have on students' lives and on society as a
whole.
Chapter 5 raises a variety of curriculum-related
issues teachers need to consider in relation to gen¬
der and art education in order to create a gender-
equitable art classroom. We also consider how issues
of gender relate to other important aspects of per¬
sonal identity, such as an individual's ethnicity, sexual
orientation, social class, or religious beliefs. The
chapter offers readers a variety of suggestions for
xviii
designing new activities, themes, and approaches,
and reframing existing curricula relative to gender
and art education. The assumption here is that an
enhanced understanding of gender theory is only
worthwhile if it is translated by the reader into her
or his classroom.
Chapters 6 and 7 explore a variety of behaviors
by teachers and students, as well as environmental
factors in the classroom, which can promote a gen¬
der equitable approach to art education. We then
offer an overview of four teachers who worked on
the construction of gender-inclusive art lessons. An
analysis of how each contributing teacher modified
or re-envisioned their art curriculum to explore,
more effectively, issues of gender in his or her class¬
room is provided. Each of these studies focuses on a
different developmental level, K-3, 4-6, 7-9 and
10-12. Three of them were developed by art special¬
ists, and a fourth was designed by an elementary
classroom teacher who was interested in creating
interdisciplinary lessons for her students.
Our last chapter provides concrete definition for
the ideal art classroom in which issues of gender are
treated in a rich and comprehensive manner, and
where both girls and boys receive an equitable edu¬
cation. The authors also explore some of the poten¬
tial effects of inclusive curriculum on the teacher, on
the students, on other subject matter in the school
curriculum, and on the community.
Finally, we include resources and appendixes that
provide information and assist readers in obtaining
books and articles, as well as audiovisual and other
resources necessary to deal effectively in the class¬
room with the gender issues raised in this book.
Resources include information about accessing rele¬
vant images, reproductions, software, and Web
sources. A bibliography keyed to both artists and
gender issues including historical, biographical, theo-
retical, curricular, and critical materials is also
included, as are worksheets relating to gender and
art education.

* David and Myra Sadker, Failing at Fairness: How Our

Schools Cheat Girls (New York: Touchstone Books, 1994).
See also American Institute of Research, Gender Gaps:
Where Schools Fail Our Children (New York: Marlowe,
1999), and Janice Koch and Beverly J. Irby, eds. Defining
and Redefining Gender Equity in Education (Greenwich,
CT: Information Age, 2002). See also David Sadker,
"Gender Equity: Still Knocking at the Classroom Door,"
Equity and Excellence in Education, 2000 (33,1), 80-83.
Understanding Gender: In Society,
Schools, and the Artroom
"From culture to culture, the male-female distinction has been assigned meanings and
significance 'tjiat have implications for work, family, leisure, and ritual—virtually all aspects
of social life. Yet, it is only within fairly recent history that we have begun to stand back
from and question the meanings that cultures have placed on femaleness and maleness,
femininity and masculinity."

— Hilary M. Lips, Sex and Gender: An Introduction (1997).'

You may think that gender is the clearest and most obvious concept one

can imagine. After all, there are boys and girls. In the words of the old cliche

"What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and all things nice. What are

little boys made of? Snips and snails and puppy dog tails." Although most

people today understand the absurdity of this rhyme, people and society

often treat boys and girls as opposites. To the superficial observer, boys and

girls don't seem to look alike, act alike, think the same thoughts, or possess

the same abilities.

 How true and how widespread are these apparent
differences? Where meaningful differences seem to
exist between the sexes, how much of this difference
is biological? How much is a product of a socializa¬
tion process that begins at birth?
Socialization is the lifelong process by which
society defines what is expected of us as individu¬
als. Why do people focus so much on differences
between boys and girls, rather than looking at
individual differences among boys, or among girls,
and at similarities that cross gender lines? How
much of society's belief that there are fundamental
differences between boys and girls is simply a
matter of self-fulfilling expectations? In other
words, do people exaggerate differences and
ignore similarities because they accept the basic
idea that boys and girls are very different kinds of
people? These are the kinds of questions psycholo¬
gists and others have begun to ask, particularly
over the past thirty years. And these are important
questions for all teachers because their assumptions
7.7 Stereotypical boys' toys.
Photo: Frances Thurber.
2 Chapter
about gender can affect not only how they teach a
subject, but also how they treat boys and girls in
the classroom.
*
Gender Expectations: How We Treat
Boys and Girls
People begin to treat boys and girls differently at
birth. One of the first questions parents are asked
when they are expecting the birth of a child is: "Do
you want a boy or a girl?" One of the first facts peo¬
ple confirm after a birth is the sex of the child.
Studies have also shown that parents have differing
expectations and practice differing treatment of
male or female babies. Other experiments have
shown that when the identical infant is presented to
strangers as a boy, and then to others as a girl, the
child is treated entirely differently.2 Think about
what an impact this different treatment of boys and
girls has, particularly when it happens every day.
Think about the powerful effect the classroom has in
the gender socialization process. Teachers may ques¬
tion whether this differential treatment is healthy
7.2 Stereotypical girls' toys. Photo: Frances Thurber.
1
 for girls, for boys, and for society as a whole. Current Gender Matters
research maintains that it is not.
"In almost every society and culture, boys are pre¬
A mounting body of evidence demonstrates that
ferred and privileged over girls. Son preference is a
the differing treatment and socialization of girls and
form of gender discrimination that begins at birth—
boys limits the possibilities for both. Many studies
or even before. It may be subtle, as when boys,
support the notion that the socialization process, a
but not girls, are encouraged to pursue advanced
major portion of which occurs in schools, has an
education ... It may be pronounced, as when girl
extremely detrimental effect on girls in terms of ful¬
children are physically neglected, or given smaller
filling their full potential. In fact, what teachers
shares of food, health care, or resources."
often describe as girls' strengths in the classroom—
Source: Joni Seager, The State of Women in the World
good behavior, desire to please teachers, and gen¬
Atlas, 2nd ed. (London: Penguin Books), 1997, 34.
eral attention to assigned tasks—actually work
against them in terms of obtaining equal, quality This may seem to be a statement that applies to

attention from the teacher. At the same time, boys' other cultures, but can you think of common, though

poor behavior often works in their favor, as they perhaps less severe, forms of gender discrimination in

monopolize much of the teacher's attention and our society? For example, do girls receive the same
••••**■

time.3 Research also indicates, however, that we may level of encouragement to enter the professions or to

have strapped our male children into an emotionally pursue careers in business or government?
>*4a

repressive "boy code" which often dooms them to Try This: With your students, make a list of roles that
failure in certain academic skills such as reading and adults are expected to play in society, such as: work¬
writing, and lack of success in their emotional and ing full-time, taking care of children, cooking, serving
»mU

behavioral growth.4 Conscientious teachers can
actively participate in efforts to reduce gender
inequality. How do they begin? Sorting out some key
concepts about gender issues will provide a common
base for discussion.
in public office, taking care of the sick, etc. For each
role, ask students to write down whether a man, a
woman, or either might most likely fill that role. Ask
students to give reasons for their answers and discuss
their conclusions. You are likely to find that, as is

common with most people, your students have very

Gender vs. Sex: A Critical Distinction different expectations of males and females.
for Teachers
Although people may think of "sex" and "gender"
as interchangeable, these concepts are very differ-
ent.5 "Sex," a biological concept, refers to an indi¬
vidual's maleness or femaleness, determined by his
or her sex chromosomes. "Gender," on the other

3
Understanding Gender: In Society, Schools, and the Artroom
 Try This iors can be assigned to individuals based on whether
they are male or female. Gender stereotypes can
t-i Think back to your childhood. Write down a list of
have a number of different components: traits, role
your parents' expectations of you. Did you have a *

behaviors, occupations, and physical characteristics.

sibling of the other gender? Were your parents'
Such stereotypes can lead to bias or even prejudice,
expectations the same for both of you? If they were
a negative evaluation based on whether someone is
different, how were they different? Parents often
male or female, which is called sexism. Such sexist
have very different expectations for their male and
stereotypes can affect what teachers expect from
female children.
their students. For example, if a teacher assumes that
females are more emotional than males, he may
expect the girls in his classroom to be more openly
hand, is not as fixed a concept and refers to those
emotional when reading disturbing material. If a
aspects of being female or male, other than the obvi¬
ous physical ones, that are always a product of soci¬ teacher expects boys to be more stoic, less emo¬
tional, she may be surprised or even unsupportive
ety and culture. Although these two aspects of a
person's identity interact, they are different. when dealing with open displays of emotion from

Depending on whether someone is male or female, boys. Regardless of the ways teachers' biases are

people tend to have strong, and very different, expressed, preset expectations narrow the range of

expectations about how they should dress, act, and acceptable behaviors in and out of the classroom for

relate to others. These expectations directly affect both boys and girls.

people's appearance, behavior, and attitudes. People

learn these expectations in the environments, includ¬
ing schools, in which they grow up. "Gender," the
way one's male or female identity is expressed, is
much more a matter of society's expectations than of
biology. It is useful for teachers to think of gender as
constructed from cultural expectations, as one might
build a house out of toy blocks. A person's early
experiences are the foundation. Then, as he or she
grows up, a person builds gender identity on that
base.

Gender Stereotypes and How We Teach

Rigid gender expectations are often based on male
or female stereotypes, such as the belief that all girls
should be physically attractive, or that all boys
should be strong. Gender stereotypes are socially
1.3 Childrens' costumes split along gender lines.
shared beliefs that certain characteristics and behav¬ Photo: Frances Thurber.

4 Chapter 1
 Why should teachers be aware of gender issues? Gender Matters
Even if teachers never deal directly with gender
When the University of Michigan was founded in
issues in their curricula, the classroom is a prime site
1837, places were set aside for women, but none
for shaping our students' ideas about gender,
were admitted until 1870. An 1858 report of the
whether the teacher or students are aware of it or
University Regents opposed coeducation on the
not. Both the content teachers present, and their
grounds that it was "contrary to nature," and that
pedagogy shape students' views of gender. As will
"young men would lose a proper sense of dignity of
be discussed in Chapter 2, there are many reasons
their pursuits," while "the delicacy of the female
why the art classroom can play such a powerful role
character would be destroyed."
in shaping students' ideas about gender. Regardless
Source: Carl Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family
of whether teachers are responsible for all subjects
in America from the Revolution to the Present (New
or only art in their classrooms, gender issues always
York and London: Oxford University Press, 1980), 311.
play a role in teaching art. Examining some long-
held and influential assumptions about gender will
prepare the ground for exploring the ways gender
Discussion Point: Do we still see traces of these gen¬
shapes views of art, and art shapes ideas about der attitudes today? For example, people still seem
gender. to see certain traits or occupations as male or
\
female.
Assumptions and Misconceptions
about Gender: In Society and Schools
Before discussing how gender issues play out in Try This: With your students, make a list of nouns

the classroom, one can examine some common and adjectives, such as strong, weak, leader, fol¬

assumptions and misconceptions about gender. lower, teacher, sympathetic, attractive, etc. Next,

Many assumptions about gender fall into certain ask students to classify each word as male, female,

commonly recurring categories and have a long or either. Then write a list of the "male" words and

history. What are some of the most frequently held the "female" words on the board and discuss the

assumptions by society and education, assumptions results. Do most students agree, or are there strong

that affect how teachers treat their male and female differences of opinion? Are there greater differences

students? of opinion among boys or among girls, or are the

differences of opinion between boys and girls? Do

Females as Inferior Males The notion that females you find common gender biases, such as the idea

are deficient males has a long history. The Greek that a strong person must be male, among your stu¬

philosopher Aristotle, who had a tremendous impact dents?

on Western thought from antiquity through the

Middle Ages, believed that, in some respects, women
were defective men. According to Freud, girls saw
themselves as physically deficient in relation to boys.

Understanding Gender: In Society, Schools, and the Artroom

5

Try This
Make a list of professions and occupa¬
tions, such as physician, nurse, secretary,
scientist, artist, graphic designer, fashion
designer, architect, museum director,
engineer, teacher, legislator, etc. Then
ask your class to put an "m" by the pro¬
fessions that they feel could best be
filled by a man, an "f" by those that
could best be filled by a woman, and
"mf" by those that could be filled by
either. Compile the lists and ask students
to explain their answers. Although soci¬
ety is increasingly coming to the realiza¬
tion that either men or women can fill
most occupations, what attitudes sur¬
faced among your students? You may
find that stereotypical views about what
occupations are "male" or "female" per¬
sist among your students. You might
also ask your students what they might
consider as a career. Are the answers you
receive from boys and girls similar or
different?
i-5%,
S-
llllslfik
6 Chapter
Seeing herself as lacking (in Freud's view), the girl
develops a sense of inferiority and contempt for her
own sex. Even though this idea was disputed even by
some in Freud's circle, it had a lasting impact in pro¬
moting the notion of the inferiority of the female
sex. Early in the twentieth century, Freud's views
were challenged by psychoanalyst Karen Horney,
who emphasized the importance of social and cul¬
tural factors in the development of gender identity
and gender roles, but Freud's ideas are still influen¬
tial today.
Males and Females as Opposites The notion that
men and women are opposites, with complementary
qualities, also has a long history in Western thought
and practice. In the Renaissance, it was argued that
men are, by nature, hot and dry, whereas, women
are cold and wet. Since it was believed that heat and
dryness were necessary for intelligence, men were,
by definition, more intelligent than women. Even
though these ideas seem ridiculous today, these
beliefs about the essential nature of men and
women led to assumptions about their respective
potentials, roles, and capabilities. Prejudiced asser¬
tions about women's intellectual abilities, supposed
physical limitations, and supposed emotional instabil¬
ity or fragility were used to argue that they must be
kept out of many spheres, including higher educa¬
tion, business, public life, and professional artistic
careers. If these ideas about gender difference seem
distant and absurd, remember that there are still
debates going on as to whether or not women are
"fit" to do certain jobs. Recent studies have demon¬
strated that when the same anonymous publication,
is attributed to a man, it is rated more favorably by
both men and women than when it is attributed to a
woman author, suggesting that sexist bias still exists.6
1
 In examining statistics related to large groups of
Students Speak about Gender Matters
girls and boys, one can identify differences in charac¬
teristics of importance to educators. However, "I hate it when teachers correct you," says Evie, who

according to several different studies, girls and boys . . . is enrolled in Weston's gifted students program.

are far more alike in their skills, competencies, and "And it's worse when they say it's okay to do things

educational outcomes than they are different.7 To wrong in that voice like 'It's okay, honey.' I can't

put it another way, there is greater variation in these handle it. I get really red and I start crying and I feel

key characteristics among boys, or among girls, than stupid."

between boys and girls. Teachers' assumptions about
boys and girls may bias the way they treat individu¬
als in the classroom, so that a student's educational
performance simply reinforces the teacher's biases.
For example, girls may live down to expectations
that they will be poor in mathematics; or a teacher's
expectations that a male student in an art class
requires more assistance in developing technical skills
than girls may lead to learned helplessness. Studies
show that art teachers will often finish the work of
their female students rather than give them extra
technical attention.8 What impact might this have on
the ambitions, self-confidence, and success of girls,
particularly those interested in careers in art?
Although people often refer to "the opposite
sex," does research on similarities and differences
between males and females support this phrase?
The answer is no.
"I think," Amy says slowly, "I think girls just worry
about what people will say more than boys do, so
they don't want to talk so much. . . ." "Boys never
care if they're wrong. They can say totally off-the-
wall things, things that have nothing to do with the
class sometimes. They're not afraid to get in trouble
or anything. I'm not shy. But it's like, when I get into
class, I just. . . ." She shrugs her shoulders helplessly.
"I just can't talk. I don't know why."
Source: Peggy Orenstein, School Girls: Young
Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap
(New York: 1994), 12.
It is important for teachers who wish to promote
gender equity to monitor who does the talking in
their classrooms. Research suggests that if students
are left to their own devices, boys will dominate,
and girls will be shut out.

Gender Differences: What Does

the Research Really Say?
While we, as teachers, certainly wish to avoid stereo¬
typing and false assumptions about gender, we
can't ignore society's interest in gender differences.
Researchers have sought to uncover gender differ¬
ences and have investigated possible differences
in many areas, including social behavior, cognitive
and perceptual skills, and performance in making
and responding to art. What have sociologists,

Understanding Gender: In Society, Schools, and the Artroom

7
 anthropologists, psychologists, and art education
scholars investigated and discovered? This section
provides an overview of some of their findings.
Differences in Social Behavior
Although some fairly consistent differences in social
behavior have been documented, many times the
differences are quite small, based on a particular
social setting, and almost no behaviors can be lim¬
ited solely to one or the other gender. For example,
some studies have found men to be more aggressive
and dominant than women in some situations.
However, women are also capable of aggressive and
dominant behavior. Although some researchers have
tried to argue a biological basis for this difference,
others have suggested that it has more to do with
what society deems acceptable behavior for each
sex. In fact, many psychologists today believe that it
is virtually impossible to separate out the effects of
heredity and environment, nature and nurture.
Aggression and dominance are often viewed as
desirable qualities in a man, but not in a woman.
Language is interesting in this regard: there is no
feminine equivalent for the verb "to emasculate," or
to make one lose one's masculinity. What is the sig¬
nificance for teachers? It means that if teachers
make assumptions about appropriate behavior for
boys and girls based on opposite stereotypes, they
limit the possibilities for individual expression for all
children. These limitations of possibilities seem par¬
ticularly important if they occur in the art classroom,
which stresses individual creativity and expression.
From the work of anthropologists and sociolo¬
gists, we have learned that, in many societies, men
are expected to be the leaders. Males are often
expected to go through "rites of passage"—officially
in some societies and informally in others. These
8 Chapter
events exhibit men's physical and mental toughness
and readiness to assume adult roles. Females also
undergo rites of passage in many societies. These
rites, such as the "centenaria," popular in Hispanic
cultures, tend to focus on a girl's attaining sexual
maturity and express readiness to assume the mater¬
nal and domestic roles generally expected of women.
Although gender roles can vary greatly among dif¬
ferent societies, most societies have clear expecta¬
tions of appropriate roles and behaviors based on an
individual's gender. In settings where proofs of man¬
hood are not required, men are as capable and visi¬
ble as women in exhibiting nurturing behavior. In
settings in which society allows it, women are capa¬
ble of assuming the role of leader.
Sociologists have also found that males and
females often reveal different approaches to play
and to forming personal relationships. The social play
of males often exhibits more competition and
aggression than that of females. In girls' contexts,
play is often structured, supervised, and circum¬
scribed. Although aggression is not generally viewed
as positive, it is one aspect of a more active approach
to relating to the world around one. Society also val¬
ues competitiveness. A boy's context hints of discov¬
ery, inventiveness, and an active understanding of
the world in which he lives. He is socialized to
believe that he can create an effect on his environ¬
ment. Too often, girls are socialized into more pas¬
sive approaches to the world around them. They
often feel acted upon by forces they can't influence
or control. Overt curiosity and exploratory behavior
is more evident in males, which is manifested in their
having more friends, but with less intimacy
("wings"). Girls, on the other hand, tend to be
"roots," and seek out intimacy as a key factor in
their relationships.9
1
 As teachers, we need to be aware that both girls
and boys may be less likely to assume roles and
behaviors which society sees as more appropriate for
the other gender. Through what we do in the class¬
room we may be able, for example, to foster explo¬
ration and leadership in our girls, as well as in our
boys, and to promote relationships and connections
among our boys, as well as among our girls. By chal¬
lenging the limited expectations in terms of roles
and behaviors that society has for boys and girls, we
can broaden the possibilities for all our students.
Differences in Cognitive and Perceptual Skills
and Other Behaviors
Research by psychologists has often been biased by
the assumption that males and females are funda¬
mentally different psychologically. Researchers have
put much rnpre effort into looking for psychological
differences between genders than for similarities.
The end result is that psychologists have tended to
focus on and even exaggerate the significance of
studies that seemed to reveal differences, and to
ignore or minimize findings that revealed similarities
between genders.
Everyone accepts that there are some physiologi¬
cal differences between females and males.
Generally, women are capable of bearing children;
they live longer, are smaller, have more body fat,
have half the upper-body strength of males, and
mature about two years earlier than men. Apparent
differences between males and females in perceptual
and cognitive abilities do not present such a clear
picture. Although a great deal of research has gone
into attempting to document and explain differences
in preferences, perceptions, or performance, the
results are limited and perhaps even elusive.
Understanding Gender: In Society, Schools, and the Artroom
In 1974, when two female psychologists, Maccoby
and Jacklin, reviewed a large number of studies that
purported to demonstrate differences in a wide
variety of behavioral areas between males and
females, they came to very different conclusions and
views from the common wisdom in psychology at
the time, which tended to see males and females
as so profoundly different. This bias about gender
differences had affected many of the studies they
reviewed.They concluded that there were only four
areas in which female-male differences were well-
established: aggression, spatial ability, verbal ability,
and quantitative ability. For example, they indicated
that young children generally preferred same-sex
playmates, and by the age of four, they had devel¬
oped a strong sense of their own gender. They used
language differently. Boys' language was command¬
ing in nature; girls' language took on a "suggesting"
approach. Boys were often "showoffs" who favored
the behavior to social cohesion. Girls often exhibited
passive behavior and were often rewarded for it by
adults. By ages six to ten, children were intense
stereotypers. Were these distinctions purely a matter
of gender classification? Certainly not. Socially con¬
structed forces are at work determining gender role
expectations and differences within twenty-four
hours of a child's birth.
With subsequent studies and analyses over the
intervening thirty years, even these four "well-
established" gender differences cited by Maccoby
and Jacklin have been challenged or qualified.10
What can we conclude from this body of research?
Evidence from psychology suggests that it makes no
sense to talk of "opposite sexes," and that we need
to consider that girls and boys have a wide range of
abilities and behaviors which are not dictated solely
by their gender.
9
 Summing up a lengthy discussion of the current
state of what we know about male-female differ¬
ences in social behavior and cognitive and percep¬
tual abilities, psychologist Hilary Lips gives us what
must truly be the educational bottom line: "None of
the research discussed . . . provides any justification
whatsoever for sex discrimination in education,
employment, the law, or any of our social institu¬
tions, or for the segregation of jobs according to
gender. The finding that gender differences in abili¬
ties are so few in number and so small in size indi¬
cates clearly that individual differences rather than
gender differences are the ones to be kept in mind
when deciding what educational programs are best
suited to various people. . . . "(authors' emphasis).11
Studies on Gender and Art Education
In art education, as well as in psychology, attempts
have been made to analyze differences in percep¬
tual, cognitive, and motor skills and preferences
between boys and girls. Many of these studies may
have been affected by the same biases that have
affected so many psychological studies. For example,
they can ignore indications of similarity between
boys and girls in order to highlight differences. If
student drawings are viewed as indicators of student
learning and cognitive development, they can be
compared for significant differences in achievement
or preferences for imagery based on gender. In sev¬
eral studies during the past thirty years, reported
differences between male and female student per¬
formance and behavior have been subtle. This may
indicate something else is operating besides whether
the student is a boy or a girl. Some of the more
recent art education research studies suggest that
factors other than the sex of the student may
account for differences. One recent study suggests
10
that how children perceive their gender role in their
environment may be significant.12 Another recent
study raises the possibility that the degree of matu¬
ration might have an effect in studies of difference
regarding girls' and boys' preferences for style and
content of imagery.13 In 1998, Brewer's research
strongly suggests that differences in student perfor¬
mance may also be tied to whether a student
receives formal and substantive education in art¬
making and its related disciplines.14 Once again,
then, we find that factors beyond gender better
account for differences in certain attitudes and
behaviors.
Recent research suggests that gender issues in
classrooms are complex, and that it is difficult to
draw clear conclusions about innate differences
between girls and boys. Given current understanding
of sex and gender differences, it may be most impor¬
tant that, rather than treating boys and girls differ¬
ently, teachers remain sensitive to individual
differences for each of the students they teach. A
focus on providing for equal outcomes for students is
far more equitable than acting on gender-based
assumptions. Teachers can make a difference. Art
instruction with careful attention to gender issues
does matter.
Chapter 1
Notes 13 Leni Salkind and Neil J. Salkind, "Gender and Age
1 Hilary M. Lips, Sex and Gender: An Introduction, 5th ed. Differences in Preference for Works of Art," Studies in
(Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 2004), xi. Art Education 38, no. 4, 1997, 246-256.
2 Ibid., 292-294. 14 Thomas M. Brewer, "The Relationship of Art Instruction,
3 American Institute for Research, Gender Gaps: Where Grade-Level, and Gender on Third- and Seventh-Grade
Schools Still Fail Our Children, commissioned by the Student Drawings," Studies in Art Education 39, no. 2,
AAUP (New York: Marlowe and Company, 1999), 62-63. 1998,132-146.
4 William Pollock, Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the
Myths of Boyhood (New York: Random House, 1998),
233-236; see also David and Myra Sadker, Failing at
Fairness: Flow Our Schools Cheat Girls (New York:
Touchstone Books, 1994), Ch. 8, "The Miseducation of
Boys," 197-225.
5 Much of the subsequent discussion of sex and gender
and what we do and don't know about gender similari¬
ties and differences is distilled from the following
sources: Lips, Sex and Gender: An Introduction; James A.
Doyle, Sex and Gender: The Fluman Experience
(Dubuque,. IA: William C. Brown, 1985).
6 Lips, Sex and Gender: An Introduction, 12.
7 American Institute for Research, Gender Gaps, 6.
8 Renee Sandell, "Feminist Concerns and Gender Issues in
Art Education," Translations: From Theory to Practice 8,
no. 1, Spring 1999.
9 "Gender: The Enduring Paradox," video by Greater
Washington Telecommunications Inc., 1991, for
Smithsonian Institution World and WETA; "Sex and
Gender," Annenberg—CPB Collection Video, Discovering
Psychology series, no. 17, 1989.
10 Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin, The Psychology of
Sex Differences (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1974), discussed in Lips, Sex and Gender: An
Introduction, 109, and Doyle, Sex and Gender: The
Fluman Experience, 57.
11 Lips, Sex and Gender: An Introduction, 184.
12 Kathleen A. Flannery and Malcolm W. Watson, "Sex
Differences and Gender-Role Differences in Children's
Drawings," Studies in Art Education 36, no. 2, 1995,
114-122,

Understanding Gender: In Society, Schools, and the Artroom

11
Gender Matters: Views of Gender

and How They Affect Art Students

Evidence shows that even young children already reveal that they have internal¬

ized stereotypes related to gender. For example, boys often express contempt

for behavior they label as "sissy," such as playing with dolls. If a girl wants to

engage in demanding physical activity, such as wrestling, or climbing trees, she

may be labeled a "tomboy," that is one who is not a "proper" girl. How are

these stereotypes and differential roles or expectations created? Almost every

institution of society, including the family unit, contributes to their formation

and perpetuation: education, religion, business, politics, the media, and others.

Each of us can think of numerous instances of gender stereotyping from our

own lives and explore what impact they had on us. Rather than citing all the

ways society shapes our notions of gender, this discussion will focus primarily

on the role of schools, since that is our focus as teachers. Yet it is useful to

maintain awareness of how other aspects of society affect gender concepts,

roles, and expectations.

13
 Try This
Observe a group of young children in a classroom
built around activity centers. Do boys and girls play
together? Are some centers used primarily by boys?
By girls? What do your observations tell you about
gender expectations and stereotyping? Do you see
how young children's play already seems to reveal
the effects of socialization by gender?
2.1 A young female athlete. What does this image suggest about
changing gender roles? Photo: Frances Thurber.
14
It is also important to realize that in examining the
characteristics of large groups of boys and girls, fac¬
tors other .than gender, such as class, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, or religious belief may have a profound
impact. Teachers need to h.e aware that classroom
populations are composed of individuals who are alike
in many ways and different in many ways. No particu¬
lar characteristic—not gender, class, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, or other single factor—predetermines the
characteristics or educational potential of that individ¬
ual. That's why teachers must constantly strive to cre¬
ate an equitable environment for all students.
Gender Issues in the Art Classroom:
How We Teach
Many of the aspects of gender that shape behaviors
and expectations in society also operate in the class¬
room. In promoting gender equity, we need to con¬
sider both how we teach, the pedagogy, and what
we teach—the content.
A key aspect of pedagogy is creating a positive
classroom environment in which all students can
learn. To do so, we must take into account the
diverse cultural backgrounds and complex identities
of our students. In our increasingly diverse class¬
rooms, students may differ in socioeconomic status,
ethnicity, religion, physical or mental ability, sexual
orientation, and in other ways as well as in gender.
Sexual Orientation and Gender
One aspect of identity related to gender that is often
overlooked by teachers is sexual orientation. Sexual
orientation is a significant gender issue that can be
addressed with integrity and sensitivity in classrooms.
The issue may surface in relation to discussions about
the life of an artist, the art that he or she produces
and its context, or as one basis for the way that we,
as viewers, perceive the art. Secondly, it is highly
Chapter 2
likely that we will have students in our classroom Gender Matters
who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or in a
"The concepts of masculinity and femi¬
state of questioning about their sexual orientation.
ninity have a long history in psychologi¬
Providing a safe space for them in our classes is criti¬
cal discourse, but both theoretically and
cal so that they do not become victims of harassment
empirically, they seem to be among the
or discrimination in the school setting or by their
muddiest concepts in the psychologist's
peers. Let's look more closely at these dynamics.
vocabulary."
Art is not created in a vacuum. Artists, as they
—Anne Constantinople (1973), quoted in
seek to make meaning of their worlds, draw upon
James A. Doyle, Sex and Gender:
personal, social, cultural, spiritual, and intellectual
The Human Experience, 63.
ideas and values, as well as many other types of
awareness. Any aspect of a person's identity can
shape her or his art, but it does not necessarily have
to do so. However, refusal to address or become
informed about these issues in the discussion or
exploration of artworks can diminish both the art
and the learning experience for students.
Notions of gender and sexual orientation in the
classroom are often either ignored or thought about
in terms of opposites. Tightly defined categorizations
and labels such as male vs. female, masculine vs.
feminine, heterosexual vs. homosexual all serve to
create an environment of the "other," where one
type of human being becomes the norm by which a
person who is seen as different is judged. In society,
one type of person is almost always preferred over
the other. This rigid split creates difficulties for those
individuals who do not seem to have the "preferred"
characteristics. It is even more difficult for people
who do not fit into a clearly "masculine" or "femi¬
nine" mold, or who cross one of society's other com¬
mon boundaries. Not all cultures present such a
problem for their citizens. Indeed, in one Native
American culture, four genders are the accepted
norm: male, female, masculine female, and
berdache, a male person in society whose character¬
istic skill in dance, chant, or art provides him with
"two spirits," manifested in sensitivity and wisdom,

15
Gender Matters: Gender Views and How they Affect Art Students
 that benefit the spiritual nature of the culture as a
whole. This person is revered and sought out by
members of that society.1
Classrooms contain students who do not fit into
neat masculine or feminine classifications, regardless
of their sexual orientation. Female students may be
aggressive, outspoken, or dress in clothing deemed
"masculine." Male students may be soft-spoken, shy,
or prefer poetry to football, and thus are labeled
"effeminate" or "sissies." Most of these students
will, at one time or another, experience discrimina¬
tion, verbal abuse, isolation, or even violence from
certain peers. Males are particularly at risk as targets
because our society holds out a stereotypical notion
of "masculinity" as the norm. If males do not con¬
form to this rigid standard of roles and behaviors, it
is perceived as a serious breach of character. If
females seek to emulate that masculine norm, then
it is viewed as a less serious problem, since the femi¬
nine role is not as highly valued in society in the first
place. Some of our students, in addition to not fit¬
ting into a rigid gender role categorization, will
have a homosexual or bisexual orientation as well.
The authors suggest that it is a teacher's ethical
responsibility to ensure that these students have a
safe space in which to learn and grow into healthy,
functional adult members of society.
According to some statistics, gay and lesbian
youth are two to three times more likely to attempt
suicide than their heterosexual peers. Many have
made multiple attempts at suicide. Eighty percent of
gay and lesbian youth experience serious problems
with feelings of social and emotional isolation and
even outright rejection by individuals in their home,
school, and community. They are more at risk for
substance abuse than their heterosexual peers, and
are also more at risk for the acquisition of sexually
transmitted diseases. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans-
16
gendered, and questioning youth experience serious
verbal abuse and even physical violence at the hands
of their families, peers, and community.2 The most
important reason teachers need to consider these
issues is that all youth deserve an equitable educa¬
tion, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation,
ethnicity, or class.
Teachers are in a position to define their class¬
rooms as a safe place for all students. Harassment of
students because of their sexual orientation is out¬
right discrimination and cannot be tolerated in our
classrooms. The fluid and open nature of art classes,
where students can explore big ideas, engage in seri¬
ous reflective activity, and participate meaningfully
in group process, provides an excellent opportunity
for democracy in action. Teachers are role models for
students and can actively create a safe space for stu¬
dents in the art classroom. Some specific strategies
for creating such a nurturing learning environment
are discussed more in detail in Chapters 5 and 6.
The Impact of Technology
Another key aspect of pedagogy that must be con¬
sidered in promoting gender equity is the use of
technology. For example, Sandell's work on gender
issues reports that even though girls have made
strides in closing the gender gap for math and sci¬
ence achievement in schools, technology is becoming
the new "boy's dub."3 Art teachers are in a unique
position, for the benefit of both girls and boys, to
ensure that opportunities exist for students to
develop visual literacy through analysis and interpre¬
tation of graphically designed media and other arti¬
facts of popular and "high" culture, including
Web-based art, performance art, audio/video pack¬
aging or advertising, magazines, etc. Art teachers are
also able to make certain that both girls and boys
have opportunities in their classes for achievement in
Chapter 2
computer-aided design, and equal exposure to elec¬ Girls in the Null Curriculum

tronic media for research in art history or other "When girls do not see themselves in the pages of
related content areas. textbooks, when teachers do not point out or con¬

front the omissions, our daughters learn that to be

Curriculum and Gender female is to be the absent partner in the develop¬
in the Art Classroom ment of our nation. And when teachers add their
How do schools perpetuate expectations about gen¬ stereotypes to the curriculum bias in books, the
der roles? More recent mainstream curriculum mate¬ message becomes even more damaging."
rials and resources, often commercially produced,
David and Myra Sadker, Failing at Fairness: Flow
are attempting to address issues of class, ethnicity,
Our Schools Cheat Girls (New York: Touchstone
and gender, some more successfully than others.
Books, 1994), 8.
Educators often refer to this content or these materi¬
Discussion Point: How do your teaching and teach¬
als as the formal, explicit or "written curriculum."
ing materials measure up in relation to this state¬
Curriculum theorists, however, have identified other
ment? Although teaching materials in many
forms of curricula that play powerful, but insidious
subjects are beginning to address women's contri¬
roles in the classrooms of the United States. The
butions, there is still a long way to go for materials
informal, implicit "hidden curriculum" is active in
which really support a gender-equitable approach
America's schools, along with the powerful presence
to teaching.
of the "null curriculum" and its close counterpart,
termed the "evaded curriculum." According to
Chapman, "The hidden curriculum is that which we Try This: Compare the number of men and the num¬
teach without meaning to do so. The null curriculum ber of women whose works are illustrated and dis¬
is that which we leave untaught without having cussed in the textbooks you use. How much space is
given it a thought.''4 devoted to the contributions of each gender? Is this
In order to move the art classroom toward gen¬ an accurate reflection of the contributions of
der equity most effectively, one must ultimately women and men? Do the textbooks go beyond
confront the "null" and "evaded" curricula, and including women to discuss issues of gender?
transform the "hidden" and the "written" curricula. Traditionally, women's contributions and gender
Teachers can address these different aspects of the issues have been ignored or treated as of minimal
curriculum in many ways: They can make certain that importance.
female examples and perspectives are a part of their
written curriculum. They can videotape a classroom
session to compare how they treat girls and boys in
their classes. They can examine what they are teach¬
ing with a critical eye to see if important topics, such
as sexual orientation, are left out or avoided. Addi¬
tional suggestions for addressing curriculum will be
given throughout this book.

Gender Matters: Gender Views and How they Affect Art Students 17
 Curriculum and Gender courses—the material is often presented in cursory fashion.

Students are offered a set of facts devoid of references to the

"The hidden curriculum includes the norms and values that
complex personal and moral dilemmas they face in understand¬
undergird the formal curriculum.... It includes the organiza¬
ing and making decisions about critical facets of their lives."7
tional structures of the classroom and school as well as the

interaction of students and teachers." McCormick reports that \

the most common gender inequalities of society found in the
hidden curriculum of classrooms are the presence of social
interactions that reinforce male dominance, provision for occa¬
sions promoting stereotyping, and a lack of cooperative inter¬
action between genders.s For example, when a teacher gives
the lion's share of attention to boys, while ignoring girls, the
A Point to Ponder: As you think about your own art curriculum
in respect to the existence of the hidden, the null, and the
evaded curricula in your school setting, what content and
actions need to surface, change, or be reinforced? Write down
your ideas for further exploration.

teacher is conveying through the "hidden curriculum" the pow¬

erful message that only boys are worthy of being taught.

Referring to the "null curriculum" Eisner states: "... what

schools do not teach may be as important as what they do

teach. I argue this position because ignorance is not simply a

neutral void; it has important effects on the kinds of options

one is able to consider, the alternatives that one can examine,

and the perspectives from which one can view a situation or

problems. ... In identifying the null curriculum there are two

major dimensions that can be considered. One is the intellec¬

tual processes that schools emphasize and neglect. The other is

the content or subject areas that are present or absent in

school curricula."6 For example, when art created by women

artists is not mentioned in history books or art lessons, nor

shown in art resource materials or in galleries, one is led to

believe that no art worth appreciating or studying has been

created by women.

"The evaded curriculum is the term coined ... for matters cen¬

tral to the lives of students and teachers but touched upon

only briefly, if at all, in most schools. These matters include the

functioning of bodies, the expression and valuing of feelings,

and the dynamics of power. In both formal coursework and

informal exchanges among teachers and students, serious con¬

sideration of these matters is avoided. When avoidance is not

possible—as in the case of required health or sex-education

18 Chapter 2
Approaches to Gender Equity The Critic Speaks
in the Artroom
"Man's sphere is that of creation . . .
Art educators interested in gender equity have iden¬
woman's that of preservation and
tified several different approaches that might be
nourishment."
used in the art education classroom. Each can con¬
tribute to gender equity in the art classroom, but the —Arthur Bye, Art and Decoration, 1910,

approaches have different strengths and limitations. quoted by Cindy Nemser, "Stereotypes

and Women Artists," in Judy Loeb, ed.

The Separatist Approach Feminist Collage: Educating Women in

In her research from 1981, Collins states that we the Visual Arts (New York: Teacher

have three choices for approaching gender equity College Press, 1979), 157.

for our art classrooms: In the "separatist" approach,

contributions by and issues about women and
Discussion Point: What does this state¬
women artists are introduced separately from other
ment mean? It seems to suggest that
existing mainstream course content, in effect "high¬
men, by their very nature, have a more
lighted." Classroom behaviors, as well as content,
important role in art and other areas of
are determined based on students' needs identified
creativity than do women. Do you agree
as a result of their gender. The content is structured
with this art critic? Why or why not?
based on the construct of difference. Many teachers
Basic assumptions about the nature of
begin in this way, by adding a few lessons on
men and women can affect how we
women artists into their existing curriculum. This can
view them in the area of artistic
be a significant first step toward gender equity. The creation.
limitation of this approach is that it may strengthen
the false notion that males and females are so dif¬
ferent that their work cannot be meaningfully
related or compared. It also can leave unexamined
basic assumptions related to curriculum and peda¬
gogy that contribute to gender inequity. In addition,
when a few women are simply added to existing cur¬
ricula, it is often done in a token fashion; for exam¬
ple, only focusing on women's contributions during
Women's History Month.

The Integrationist Approach

In the "integrationist" approach, teachers address
content and pedagogy as if gender is not a consider¬
ation. The teacher might, for example, include
female and male artists in the curriculum, but not

Gender Matters: Gender Views and How they Affect Art Students 19
 introduce gender-related issues, such as the very dif¬
ferent levels of opportunity men and women had to
become artists. This approach might be described as
"gender blind." A great deal of research suggests
that since this approach does not deal directly with
gender inequities in curriculum or in society as a
whole, it does little to further gender equality in the
classroom.
The Pluralist Approach
In the third, or "pluralist" approach, Collins suggests
that the contributions of both traditional and femi¬
nist educational thought and art content are given
attention as appropriate for the needs and growth
of all students. The focus here is not merely additive,
but a balanced and reconceptualized view of exist¬
ing and inequitable art and educational canons.8
"Canons" are made up of the body of artists' works
or ideas that are most generally accepted as impor¬
tant. There will be an equal emphasis on male and
female artists working in a variety of media, and
gender issues, such as the obstacles women artists
faced, will be explored. This approach seems to offer
more probing and substantial possibilities for grap¬
pling with issues of gender, which allow teachers to
question basic issues related to gender in the cur¬
riculum and in the classroom. We agree with Collins
and Sandell that of the three approaches discussed
above, the pluralist approach is most effective in
promoting gender equity in the art classroom.
The Social Action Approach
In 1990, Zimmerman, referencing the work of Collins
and also a model for levels of multicultural inclusion
created by Sleeter and Grant, contended that a
fourth approach to gender equity in art classrooms is
necessary. She suggested that this approach should
20
focus on "social action" as a basis for transformation
and selection of both content and pedagogical
behaviors. Citing the imagery of Judy Chicago, May
%
Stevens, and Mary Kelly, she challenged art educa¬
tors to explore contemporary feminist art that tran-
scends personal expression, challenges notions of
"fine art" in social contexts, and possesses the power
to inform students about socially constructed notions
of power, fame, or value.9
There is no single correct approach to gender
equity in the art classroom. Many teachers may find
that a combination of approaches works best. The
authors believe, however, that approaches that con¬
sider women's contributions to art and culture
within their social and cultural contexts, as well as
those that transform both content and pedagogy,
can contribute most effectively to promoting gender
equity.
In art education, the concept that gender is a
social construction and the parallel idea that art and
visual culture generally play a major role in shaping
one's notion of gender, are becoming more widely
accepted among researchers. Now it is essential to
bring these concepts into the art classroom. Raising
students' awareness of the key role that art and
visual culture play in "constructing" gender gives
them a powerful means to question their own and
others' gender expectations, biases, and stereotypes.
Parallels Found in Approaches
to Multiculturalism
These views of the approaches to promoting gender
equity in the classroom are paralleled in, and sup¬
ported by, the work of James Banks on approaches
to multiculturalism. Banks traced how ethnic content
had been structured into school curricula since the
1960s.10 He also suggested four levels of inclusion:
Chapter 2
(1) the contributions approach, which focuses on
exceptional people or ethnic celebrations; (2) the
additive approach, which attaches more curriculum
content to the existing structure without rethinking
the curriculum for implications or ramifications; (3)
the transformation approach, which reconfigures the
structure of the curriculum to allow for inclusion of
themes, perspectives, and concepts drawn from
diverse cultural populations; and (4) the social action
approach, which encourages students to make
important personal decisions about issues presented
in the curriculum, and to take steps to resolve those
issues in society.
Collins and Sandell's comprehensive book for art
educators, Women, Art, and Education (1984), drew
upon Sadker and Sadker's Sex Equity Handbook for
the Schools (1982) as a source of possible approaches
for ensuring gender equity in art classrooms.11
\
Several of their suggestions, along with many other
specific strategies for promoting gender equity in art
classrooms, are discussed in Chapters 5 and 6. In
Chapter 8, we provide a framework for considering
these approaches, both in relation to gender equity
and multiculturalism.
Gender in the Artroom: Past and Present
The K-12 art classroom has, in its history, an endur¬
ing focus on artistic achievement by mostly male
European artists. More recently, as the traditional
canon of art and artists deemed worthy of study has
been expanded and challenged, more attention has
been paid to the contributions to art and human cul¬
ture by both men and women of diverse cultural
backgrounds. Definitions of art and artists have been
expanded to include a wider range of works by
women and artists of diverse ethnic and cultural
backgrounds, and to include consideration of func¬
Gender Matters: Gender Views and How they Affect Art Students
tional, collaborative, or community arts-based efforts.
Similarly, K-12 art programs traditionally rewarded tal¬
ented students for their art-making skill, and did not
make it a high priority to educate all students about
art through the other art disciplines until after 1965.
Some efforts, however, in what came to be called
the "discipline-based" or "DBAE" approach of the
1980-1990s were highly criticized by certain art educa¬
tors in the field who saw the approach as a perpetua¬
tion of a fixed set of culturally elitist, sexist, and
philosophically outdated ideas. Although the authors
do not agree with these assertions, DBAE, now more
commonly known as "comprehensive" art education,
has evolved over the past twenty years to a more
pointed focus on issues of gender and cultural diver¬
sity.12 The authors have promoted and supported this
development.
The recent shift in art education that moves
beyond traditional conceptions of art to consider the
broader realm of visual culture in its many manifesta¬
tions, including images in popular and mass media,
allows for an even richer consideration of gender
issues in the art classroom and as they affect students'
lives. We suggest that an approach to instruction
drawing on the broadest range of sources for visual
and creative expression, and including the history of
artistic expression from various cultures across time,
contemporary visual culture, and contributions from
artists in our own communities, will be all the richer
and engage our students' interests more actively.
A socially aware and comprehensive approach to
art education that combines multicultural, feminist,
and contemporary perspectives of art history, art criti¬
cism, aesthetics, and studio experiences, can provide
multiple avenues for pursuing a healthy gender-
sensitive environment for individual students in our
classrooms. Drawing on substantive content and using
21
 Gender Matters
"Only by demystifying the stereotypical view of the
artist, female and male, can we hope to reveal the
true relationship between cultural values and the
human impulse to make and appreciate art."
—Georgia Collins and Renee Sandell, "Women's
Achievements in Art: An Issues Approach for the
Classroom," Art Education, May 1987, 21.
2.2 Dorothy Dehner (American, 1901-1994), Looking North F, 1964.
Bronze, 17 7/8 x 64 x 2" (45 x 163 x 5 cm). The National Museum of
Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Gift of the Artist.
22
issues-based or thematic approaches that reflect the
needs, values, and traditions of diverse student pop¬
ulations is an effective way to design curricula for
*
teaching art. Dealing with a broader range of visual
images, including those of popular culture, allows
\
students to connect the lessons of the classroom to
their own lives. Making the art and artists in one's
own community a part of the curriculum can have a
similar effect.13
Collins and Sandell suggest using women's
achievements in both the mainstream and "hidden-
stream" worlds of art to point out issues of bias,
power monopolies, cultural interpretations of value,
and other social and historical conditions governing
our current knowledge and appreciation of art.14
Through discussion and exploration of the work of
both female and male artists, and thinking particu¬
larly about the terms "art" and "artists" in the
broadest terms possible, female students have an
opportunity to acquire same-sex role models, and all
students gain a clearer understanding of the complex
nature of art created in all cultures by women and
men. Some of the key questions using this issues-
based approach to generate a curriculum might
include: Why do history and art history textbooks list
so few contributions by women? Why are women
artists included in fewer major art exhibitions than
men artists? What challenges in becoming an artist
and contributing to visual culture do women face
compared to men in today's society and in cultures
from the past?
Other thematic approaches, such as exploring crit¬
ical life-cycle events in diverse cultures, provide an
opportunity to select art and ideas for lessons that
draw on deeply primal issues. Timeless realities such
as birth, death, celebration, the role of work, or the
belief in a higher power have shaped cultures
throughout history. The art of diverse cultures, cre-
Chapter 2
ated by and for both men and women, provides The Artist Speaks
teachers with rich anthropological, aesthetic, psycho¬
Question from art critic and historian
logical, and artistic content for our students to
Cindy Nemser to a group of leading con¬
explore in terms of gender and other critical social
temporary female artists: "As a female
realities.15
artist, have you ever experienced dis¬

crimination from the art world?"

Promoting Individual Achievement
Along with Gender Equity Julie Lamoe: "When I graduated from art

school in 1965, men instructors were still

Even though teachers shift their focus from the limit¬
asking women students why they were
ing scope of formalism (stressing art-making skills or
painting and not getting pregnant."
an understanding of the elements and principles of
design) to a more contemporary, comprehensive Dorothy Dehner: "I have been told by

view of art education goals in their teaching, they collectors that they have been advised

can still retain the notion of individual achievement never to buy the works of a woman."

for all students. By broadening the approach they

Audrey Flack: "I used to sign my name
take to teaching art, teachers can allow all members A. Flack; then they couldn't tell a woman
of their increasingly diverse student bodies, both did it."
boys and girls, to recognize their potential for artis¬
Excerpts from Cindy Nemser, Art Talk:
tic expression. When students see their gender, eth¬
Conversations with 15 Women Artists,
nicity, or other aspects of their identity represented
2nd ed. (New York: Harper Collins), 1995:
in the art classroom, they feel a deeper sense of con¬
10-11.
nection to art. To a greater extent than in most
other areas of the curriculum, art provides students
an increasingly rare and valuable opportunity, both making context, we can ensure that the voice of
to express their individuality, and to see what they each student is heard, recognized, and rewarded as
have in common with others. we design both content and process for the males
Through another special characteristic of art and females in our art classroom settings.
instruction, where students are real makers—makers
of art, makers of meaning in their world—art serves
as a powerful expression of the self. The artroom is
one of the few classroom settings where students
can be frequently and genuinely rewarded for diver¬
gent and individual thought. Art teachers whose stu¬
dents turn out series of visually similar artworks
might reevaluate the goals of their lessons to include
opportunities for students' personal interpretation
and expression. Even when a student undertakes the
role of a single contributor in a collaborative art-

Gender Matters: Gender Views and How they Affect Art Students 23
 Notes
1 James Doyle, Sex and Gender: The Human Experience
(Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown, 1985), 137-138.
2 "Factfile: Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth," information
flyer (New York: Hetrick-Martin Institute), 1992.
3 Renee Sandell, "Feminist Concerns and Gender Issues in
Art Education." NAEA Translations: From Theory to
Practice 8, no. 11 Spring, 1999.
4 Anne Chapman, "Undercurrents of Gender: The Hidden
Curriculum and the Null Curriculum," A Great Balancing
Act: Equitable Education for Boys and Girls
(Washington, DC: National Association of Independent
Schools, 1997), 13-38. Quote is from p. 13.
5 Theresa Mickey McCormick, Creating the Nonsexist
Classroom: A Multicultural Approach (New York,
Teachers College Press, 1994). McCormick, on p. 60,
quotes Gollnick and Chinn's (1994) definition of hidden
curriculum. The most common factors listed were based
on Lockheed and Klein's 1985 study, quoted in
McCormick.
6 Eliot Eisner, "The Three Curricula that All Schools
Teach," The Educational Imagination: On the Design
and Evaluation of School Programs (New York:
Macmillan, 1994), 87-107, introduces the ideas of
explicit and implicit curricula as well as null curricula;
Quote is from Eisner, The Educational Imagination,
pp. 97-98.
7 The "Evaded Curriculum" is a phrase defined in the
AAUW Educational Foundation Report, How Schools
Shortchange Girls, 1992, 75-82. It is similar to the notion
of Eisner's null curricula except that it appears to focus
more closely on how feeble attempts can be made to
include minimal or discreet content—while virtually
ignoring the core issues or key concepts of a curricular
area. It is a small step up from total ignorance of an
area of study as defined in null curricula. Quote is from
P-75.
8 Georgia Collins, "Feminist Approaches to Art
24
Education," The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 15, 2,
1981, 83-94. These ideas were further elaborated in
Georgia Collins and Renee Sandell, Women, Art, and
%
Education (Reston, VA: National Art Education
Association, 1984), 163-180.
9 Enid Zimmerman, "Issues delated to Teaching Art from a
Feminist Point of View," Visual Arts Research 16, no. 2,
1-9. Article cites the work of Collins and also Christine
Sleeter and Carl Grant's "An Analysis of Multicultural
Education in the United States," Harvard Educational
Review 57, no. 4, 1987, 421-444.
10 James Banks, "Integrating the Curriculum with Ethnic
Content: Approaches and Guidelines," in J. Banks and
C. Banks, eds.. Multicultural Education: Issues and
Perspectives (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1989), 192-207.
11 Georgia Collins and Renee Sandell, Women, Art, and
Education; Myra and David Sadker, Sex Equity Handbook
for the Schools (New York: Longman, Inc., 1982).
12 Articles such as Georgia Collins and Renee Sandell's
"Informing the Promise of DBAE: Remember the
Women, Children, and Other Folk," Journal of Multi¬
cultural and Cross-Cultural Research in Art Education 6,
no. 1, 55-63, and Karen Hamblen's "An Examination of
Discipline-Based Art Education Issues," Studies in Art
Education 28, no. 2, 68-78, helped to spur a critical dia¬
logue about the nature and function of art education in
America's schools relative to issues of gender, race, and
class. Many other excellent articles exist, although too
numerous to mention here, regarding the evolving
approach of a discipline-centered art curriculum in this
country. A summary of the authors' work in the evolu¬
tion of DBAE, within the context of the Nebraska Prairie
Visions Project can be found in Brent Wilson, The Quiet
Evolution: Changing the Face of Arts Education (Los
Angeles: Getty Education Institute for the Arts, 1997),
esp. pp. 49-50, 101-109, 128-129, and 184-185. See also
Michael Gillespie, Frances Thurber, Joanne Sowell,
Martin Rosenberg, and Gary Day, "A View from the
Chapter 2
 Field: Comprehensive Art Education for In-Service Teachers,"
Visual Arts Research (Fall 1997), 23, no. 2, 52-62.
13 For the emphasis on visual culture in art education, see
Deborah Smith-Shank, ed., Semiotics and Visual Culture: Sights,
Signs and Significance (Reston, VA: NAEA, 2004), and Kerry
Freedman, Teaching Visual Culture (Reston, VA: NAEA, 2003).
Additional sources on visual culture can be found in the bibli¬
ography. On Community-based art, see Kristin Congdon,
Community Art in Action (Worcester, MA: Davis, 2004).
14 Georgia Collins and Renee Sandell, "Women's Achievements in
Art: An Issues Approach for the Classroom," Art Education, 40,
no. 3, 1987, 12-21.
15 Ernest L. Boyer, "Educating in a Multicultural World," Access
112, (Summer 1992), 1-2, 4-6, 8.

25
Gender Matters: Gender Views and How they Affect Art Students
Gender Issues in Art and Visual Culture
"A simple question, such as 'Why have there been no great women artists?' can, if answered
adequately, create a chain reaction, expanding to encompass every accepted assumption of
the field, and then outward to embrace history and the social sciences or even psychology
and literatureXi . . "

— Linda Nochiin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?"1

Why should teachers consider issues of gender in relation to art? Isn't art a

universal language that transcends all barriers and crosses all lines of gender,

culture, and ethnicity? Although at a certain level this is true, it is equally true

that what humans view as art, whom they consider important artists, and how

they respond to, interpret, and evaluate art have all been and continue to be

affected by considerations of gender. In addition, although art can explore

aspects of experience common to all humanity, it also allows for the expression

of the individual's voice, experiences, and perspectives. If the voices of women

and girls are absent from the artistic dialogue, then half of humanity has been

excluded and remains voiceless and silent.

27
 Discussion Point
What does this photo say about changing
gender roles?
Try This: Ask your students to bring pictures to class
of men and women engaged in activities that do
not follow "traditional" gender roles. Discuss what
makes a role traditionally "male" or "female."
Discuss how our ideas about roles have changed
over time.
3.1 Does this young girl fit the usual feminine stereo¬
type? Photo: Dave Manriquez.
28
How Does Gender Affect Our Views
of Art and Artists?
So how does gender affect our views about art and
artists? Everyone, including those who teach art, has
a sense of what art is worth attending to, and what
art is not—whether or not the person has thought
about it. Some people might feel that important art
is what is hanging in museums or galleries. The
viewer often assumes that this must be great art,
since the experts have chosen it, and it has "with¬
stood the test of time." Others might believe that
great art is what we find in survey texts, such as
Janson's History of Art or Gardner's Art Through the
Ages. Until the 1970s, virtually no women artists
were included in any of the major survey texts on
the history of art.
Janson's 1986 edition of History of Art offers its
readers nineteen black-and-white illustrations of
women's art as opposed to 1,060 images by male
artists, as well as two color plates representing
female artists versus 175 color plates by male
artists.2
Art Deemed Worth Studying
Although newer editions of History of Art and other
art survey texts include more women, they often dis¬
cuss women in a cursory fashion as compared to
men, or describe them as the followers or imitators
of male artists. Despite some improvement in the
representation of women and their art, more than
90 percent of the space in most texts is still devoted
to male artists and their works.
What do other authoritative sources in the art
world tell us about the role of women in art? If one
visits most art museums and galleries, or leafs
through many popular or scholarly art publications,
Chapter 3
one is struck by the relative scarcity of works made Try This
by women. Women are featured by major New York
Look through some of your art books, including your college
galleries less than 10 percent of the time, and they
texts. How many women are discussed? Is as much space
are frequently and noticeably underrepresented in
given to women artists as to their male contemporaries?
museum solo and group exhibits, in literary critical
Which of your books discuss gender issues which affected
reviews, and in the receipt of national art fellow¬
women artists and their art? Until recently, women have
ships and grants.
received very little notice in most art books and gender
Even in institutions of higher education across
issues have been ignored. Do you find this is true in your
this country, women artists are often underrepre¬
personal art library?
sented as studio faculty. An interesting question that
bears further demographic scrutiny is an examina¬
tion of the ratio of men and women artists in Master Try This
of Fine Arts programs. The MFA track, of course, is
What aspects of inequality between male and female artists
the major conduit for the pool of available studio
does this poster suggest? Discuss this with your students.
faculty for new hiring in art programs in higher edu¬
Can your students think of similar differences in the treat¬
cation across the United States. According to the
ment of men and women in other professions?
Guerrilla Girls, although women often make up
more than half of enrollments in such programs,
many university art departments still exist in which
women compose less than a third of the full-time
faculty.

How Do Women Appear in Art

and in Visual Culture?
Despite the limited number of women artists dis¬
cussed in art books and museums, galleries contain
countless images of women: the Madonna, nudes,
portraits, and other representations. Based on this
evidence, one might conclude, erroneously, that
women were not makers of art, but they certainly
were the focus of a great many works of art. In fact,
according to statistics printed on one of the art
"awareness" posters created by the Guerrilla Girls,
a group of feminist activist artists, less than 5 per¬
cent of artists shown in the Modern Art section of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art are women, but
3.2 Guerrilla Girls, "The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist,
poster, c. 1987.
THE ADVANTAGES
OF BEING
A WOMAN ARTIST:
Working without the pressure of success.
Not having to be in shows with men.
Having an escape from the art world in your 4 free-lance jobs.
Knowing your career might pick up after you're eighty.
Being reassured that whatever kind of art you make it will be labeled feminine.
Not being stuck in a tenured teaching position.
Seeing your ideas live on in the work of others.
Having the opportunity to choose between career and motherhood.
Not having to choke on those big cigars or paint in Italian suits.
Having more time to work when your mate dumps you for someone younger.
Being included in revised versions of art history.
Not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called a genius.
Getting your picture in the art magazines wearing a gorilla suit.
A PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE FROM Guerrilla Girls CONSCIENCE or THE ART W0RL0
$37 loGUAHOIA PLACE. *337*

Gender Issues in Art and Visual Culture 29

 85 percent of the nudes are female.3 In addition,
women are constantly represented in most areas of
visual culture, including television, film, and adver¬
tisements, among others. Often, these images define
what it means to be female in stereotypical ways,
which are often not positive. By discussing appropri¬
ate examples, we can make our students aware of
how images shape our notion of what is female or
male, often limiting possibilities for both genders.
The feminist artist Judy Chicago tells a story
about taking a college course in European
Intellectual History in the late 1950s. The male pro¬
fessor promised that he would discuss women's con¬
tributions to intellectual history during the last class.
When that final class came, the professor stated that
he didn't have anything to say because women
"hadn't made any contributions to European intel¬
lectual history." Chicago remembers being devas¬
tated.4 Although teachers today might not so
publicly humiliate the female members of their
classes, a conspicuous lack of focus on women's
achievements and contributions still exists in too
many classrooms. Unless we counter the unfair and
unbalanced treatment of women in our curricula,
our students might also erroneously conclude that
there haven't been any women artists worth noting.
Women Artists? What Women Artists?
This would certainly be the case if the low level of
awareness of women artists on the part of both stu¬
dents, and many teachers, is recognized. As an art
historian and an art educator, the authors always
begin general lectures on women and art by asking
the class to list as many significant women artists in
the history of art as they can. Then students take a
full five minutes to do so. Most students put down
30
their pens after a few seconds. After time is up, we
ask how many people wrote down twenty names.
This question always brings a laugh. We progres¬
sively lower our expectations until we see if students
can name two—or even one woman artist.
We then raise the question as to why students are
unable to name more significant women artists. We
suggest that perhaps there weren't any, and point
out that in any of the standard art history textbooks
published earlier than 1973, we would find no evi¬
dence that women had ever made art in the history
of the world. Students would find, however, that
these same books are filled with images of women
from every period and culture, and they find this dis¬
parity unsatisfactory. They instinctively reject the
notion that there were no important women artists,
but they recognize almost none of them and know
nothing about their work or careers.
We then point out that, in fact, women have
made art at most times and in all places. For exam¬
ple, the Dictionary of Women Artists Born Before
1900 contains more than a thousand entries. So why
don't teachers know more about these women of
the art world, teach about them, and generally deal
with issues of gender in a more knowledgeable and
equitable way in art history and art education? Let's
take a look at some of the reasons.
Try This: See how many of the women artists on
the poster in Figure 3.3 your students can identify.
Choose several to add to your art curriculum.
Common Gender Biases in Art Instruction
A number of biases and assumptions about art and
artists endure that, when examined, also reveal gen¬
der biases that stand in the way of creating more
gender-equitable art classrooms:
Chapter 3
 Try This
Bias: We should only teach about "great" artists,
Give your students the quiz described in the text above.
and they were all men.
How many female artists could you or your students name?
Most art museums, galleries, and art history survey
Adding women artists to your curriculum would likely
texts present art as a series of relatively isolated cre¬
change the results dramatically.
ations of individual geniuses, rather than as individu¬
als' expressions shaped by complex social, historical, ".. . Feminist and/or women's art is neither a style nor a

and cultural factors. In addition, the vast majority of movement, much as this idea may distress those who would

works of art presented in art museums and galleries like to see it safely ensconced in the categories and chronol¬

and represented in survey texts are by men. In 1971, ogy of the past. It consists of many styles and individual

at the beginning of the feminist art movement, art expressions and for the most part succeeds in bypassing the

historian Linda Nochlin asked, "Why have there been star system. At its most provocative and constructive, femi¬

no great women artists?" In this article, she critiqued nist art questions all the precepts of art as we know it. ..."

the very idea of artistic quality, in which we desig¬ —Art critic Lucy Lippard, The Pink Glass Swan: Selected
nate some artists as worthy of being represented in Feminist Essays on Art (New York: The New Press, 1995),
museums and art books. Rather than "greatness" 172.
existing as some self-evident quality of certain artists
or works of art, she pointed out that the very notion
of "great artist" implied a masculine identity. This
assumption equating "male" and "greatness" has
meant that work by women has traditionally been
ignored completely, misattributed to male artists, or WHEN RACISM & SEXISM ARE
unfairly criticized and relegated to the second-rank.
Nochlin countered these ideas by pointing out that
NO LONGER FASHIONABLE,
the production of what has come to be called "great WHAT WILL YOUR ART
art" depended on a particular set of cultural and his¬ COLLECTION BE WORTH?
The art market won't bestow mega-buck prices on the work
torical circumstances which almost always favored of a few white males forever. For the 17.7 million you just spent
on a single Jasper Johns painting, you could have bought at
men over women.5 least one work by all of these women and artists of color.
Bernice Abbott Elaine de Kooning Dorothea Lange Sarah Peale
Anni Albers Lavinia Fontona Marie Laurencin Ljubova Popova
Sofonisbo Anguisolla Meta Warwick Fuller Edmonia Lewis Olga Rosanova
Diane Arbus Artemisia Gentileschi Judith Leyster Nellie Mae Rowe
Bias: Being a successful artist is simply a matter of Vanessa Bell
Isabel Bishop
Marguerite Gerard
Natalia Goncharova
Barbara Longhi
Dora Maar
Rachel Ruysch
Kay Sage
Rosa Bonheur Kate Greenawoy Lee Miller Augusta Sovoge
innate talent and individual genius. Elizabeth Bougereau
Margaret Bourke-White
Barbara Hepworfh
Eva Hesse
Lisette Model
Paula Modersohn-Becker
Vavara Stepanova
Florine Stettheimer
Romoine Brooks Hannah Hoch Tino Modotti Sophie Taeuber-Arp
One can illustrate the importance of gender in the Julia Margaret Cameron
Emily Carr
Anna Huntingdon
May Howard Jockson
Berthe Morisot
Grandma Moses
Alma Thomas
Marietta Robusti Tintoretto
Rosalba Camera Frida Kahlo Gabriele Munter Suzanne Valadon
creation of art by considering the Sistine Chapel Mary Cassatt
Constance Marie Charpentier
Angelica Kauffmann
Hilma of Klimt
Alice Neel
Louise Nevelson
Remedios Varo
Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun
Imogen Cunningham Kathe Kolhvitz Georgia O'Keeffe Laura Wheeling Waring

ceiling painted by Michelangelo, an obvious "master¬ Sonia Delaunay Lee Krasner Meret Oppenheim

A PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE FROM Guerrilla Girls CONSCIENCE OF THE ART WORLD
piece" that appears in every survey text of Western
art.
3.3 Guerrilla Girls, "When Racism & Sexism Are No Longer
Fashionable," poster, c. 1987.

Gender Issues in Art and Visual Culture 31

 An interesting question to ask your students is
Language Matters
whether a woman could possibly have painted this
Consider the following statement: "Mary Cassatt
great work. Until about thirty years ago, the ques¬
was one of the most important woman artists of
tion would be unimaginable because the implicit
the late nineteenth century." Now consider this
assumption presented in all art history texts was that
statement: "Michelangelo was one of the most
great art can only be made by great artists—all of
important man artists of the Italian Renaissance."
whom are male.
Why does the first statement strike us as perfectly
In posing the question to students as to whether
natural, while the second seems ridiculous? Could it
a woman "could" have painted the Sistine Chapel
be that as with so many other predominantly male
ceiling, students can realize that the question is
occupations, we automatically think of an artist as
ambiguous. "Could" can be taken to mean, "Would
male so the term "man artist" seems unnecessary
a woman have been physically capable of painting
and absurd? On the other hand, a female artist is
this monumental work?" Students' answers will
almost never discussed without qualifying her sta¬
depend on their own sense of gender equality. The
tus by using the term "woman artist." In what way
word "could," however, can also be interpreted in
does this reduce her stature, no matter how many
the sense of whether or not a woman would be
good things we have to say about her? One might
allowed to paint such scenes, allowed to receive such
say that the word "artist" has the male gender built
a commission, or allowed to have the necessary train-
into it. How can this bias affect our teaching?

Unless the teacher is careful with language, he or

she may reinforce biases about artists who are

women. Research has shown that language which is

gender biased contributes to sexist stereotypes.

There is a difference between describing someone

as a "police officer" and describing the person as a

"policeman."

Discussion Point: Great Art and Gender

Could a woman have painted this work? Why or

why not? What does the work say about the rela¬

tive status of men and women? You may find a very

interesting range of opinions among your male and

female students regarding these questions about

Michelangelo's Creation of Adam from the Sistine

Chapel ceiling.

3.4 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Creation of Adam, Sistine Ceiling, Vatican

Palace, Vatican State, 1508-1512. Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY.

32 Chapter 3
ing to paint, for example, the Creation of Adam Meet the Artist
with its idealized, classical nudes. The answer to all
Sofonisba Anguissola was the first professional, internation¬
of these questions is no. In fact, in Michelangelo's
ally successful Italian woman artist.6 The oldest daughter of
time, the notion of a professional woman artist was
a wealthy family from Cremona in northern Italy, her father
almost unheard of, as illustrated in the career of
gave her the best possible local art training, but, unlike male
Sofonisba Anguissola, Michelangelo's contemporary
artists, she could not freely move to a major artistic center
and an artist whose work he admired. Although
to obtain instruction. To try to compensate for this limita¬
Anguissola managed to have a successful career as a
tion, her father sent several pieces of her art to Michel¬
professional artist, she would not have been able to
angelo for his comments. Michelangelo, considered the
paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
leading artist in Italy at the time, was impressed with her

talent and offered suggestions and encouragement.

Advantages Held by Male Artists
Anguissola went on to pursue an extremely successful
Shifting the discussion to social and historical factors,
career, even becoming a renowned court painter to the King
one can ask what advantages any male artist would
of Spain. She also provided painting instruction to her sis¬
have over any woman artist at that time or any
ters. Her works reveal her innovative and distinctive paint¬
other time in obtaining the opportunity to work suc¬
ing style through which she brought a new, natural quality
cessfully as a professional artist. When students
and informality to Italian portraiture. She also was a power¬
understand the question in this way, they begin to
ful role model for women who later aspired to be profes¬

sional artists.

3.5 Sofonisba Anguissola (Italian, ca. 1532-

ca. 1625). Double Portrait of a Lady and Her
Daughter, n.d. Oil on canvas, 52 x 39 1/2" (132
x 100 cm). The National Museum of Women in
the Arts, Washington, DC. Gift of Wallace and
Wilhelmina Holladay. Anguissola's work was
esteemed by Michelangelo. She served as a
model for later professional women artists.

33
 realize that we have shifted the discussion from
Try This
questions of individual genius or innate ability to
Ask your students to imagine that young women
issues relating to how men and women, including
were never allowed in the chemistry laboratory.
artists, are treated differently by society, have differ¬
How many successful women chemists would there
ent educational opportunities, and thus a different
be? What if young women were not allowed on the
range of possibilities of achievement, recognition,
basketball court? Would we have the women's pro¬
and success. Despite movement toward greater gen¬
fessional league today? This situation can give
der equality, are boys and girls, and men and
some idea of the obstacles women artists faced.
women, still treated differently by society? Do they
have different opportunities? Do they receive the
3.6 Johann Zoffany, Academicians of the same kind of education? These can be interesting
Royal Academy, 7777-7772. Oil on canvas, topics to discuss with your students.
47 1/2x59 1/2" (121 x 151 cm). Repro¬
duced by Gracious Permission of Her
Majesty the Queen. Can you find the
Obstacles Faced by Female Artists
images of the two women in this painting, Beginning with the Renaissance, painting, like music,
Angelica Kauffmann and Mary Moser, was regarded as an appropriate leisure activity for
who were founding members of the
upper-class women. Despite this minor allowance for
Royal Academy? How do their images
women's creativity, their primary roles were always
differ from those of their male colleagues?
What do you think accounts for such
differences?

34 Chapter 3
viewed as domestic, whether as daughter, wife, or
mother. Sofonisba Anguissola and other women
artists who followed her in the sixteenth and seven¬
teenth centuries had to move beyond this limited
conception of what women could contribute to the
arts in order to obtain professional status. Even then,
many women who were able to become professional
artists had to balance domestic duties with work.
They were only able to become professional artists
because they received artistic training from a male
relative—usually their father or some other estab¬
lished male artist. A female artist, not lucky enough
to be upper class and born the daughter of an artist,
had little chance of pursuing a professional artistic
career. Men had no such limitations of class or birth.
Men could move easily to take advantage of oppor¬
tunities for professional training and education.
Women coulc^ not. Women almost always had to
take care of their families. Men's careers were not
hampered by such domestic duties. Is it any wonder
that male artists outnumbered females?
In addition to the obstacles women faced in
becoming professional artists, inequities also existed
between male and female artists in the types of art
they could pursue. Like Anguissola, women artists
from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries
typically chose still-life and portraiture, rather than
historical or religious painting, which were accorded
much higher status. This was not as much a matter
of choice as necessity, since women artists were usu¬
ally denied admission to the academies where the
requisite skills for history painting were taught, and
thus found it almost impossible to obtain the neces¬
sary training to pursue the "higher" genres of paint¬
ing.7 In particular, they were not allowed to study
from the nude model, as men were, because it was
not deemed permissible for "genteel" women to do
Gender Issues in Art and Visual Culture
so. Consequently, they were denied access to oppor¬
tunities for participation in the most respected forms
of art that required extensive knowledge of human
form and gesture. In other words, their identities
and roles as women and as artists were in direct con¬
flict. This was certainly not the case for men.
Such a double standard for women seeking a pro¬
fessional art education has continued into the 1900s.
For example, American architecture schools only
recently began to routinely admit women to their
programs. The situation was so blatant that from
1915 to 1942, women architecture students could
train at only one gender-segregated institution in
the United States.8
Let's put this issue of the denial of access faced by
women artists of the sixteenth through the nine¬
teenth centuries into a situation in contemporary
education. One of the major challenges of the
twenty-first century in K-12 education and beyond
will be to educate learners in visual literacy, issues of
technology, and computer expertise. Studies show
that gifted girls often self-select out of math and sci¬
ence, as well as other technology-based classes, by
the time they reach junior high. As art becomes
more technologically based, those students receiving
a good artistic or technical education will successfully
navigate through the professional art world of
tomorrow. Some girls, and other economically and
culturally disadvantaged students denied access to
this information and these skills, will never be able
to compete in the global market that society now
envisions. As a result, society will relegate these stu¬
dents to a permanent position of disadvantage and
lack of success.
Think how often we hear the phrase "glass ceil¬
ing," which describes women reaching an often hid¬
den barricade to future advancement. Differing
35

Working and Gender
Try This: Ask your students to make a list of occupa¬
tions they might have when they grow up. Do boys
and girls list similar possibilities? Write them on the
board and discuss. Are there occupations which
students see as more appropriate for boys? For
girls? What kinds of reasons do they give for
choices? You might try switching the gender of
some occupations which are seen as more typically
"male" or "female." Ask, for example, "couldn't a
woman be an astronaut?" This is an opportunity to
challenge students' notions that certain jobs are
only appropriate for one gender.
An excerpt from "Looking at Quilts" by the well-
known poet. Marge Piercy:
"Who decided what is useful in its beauty
means less than what has no function
besides beauty
(except its weight in money)?
Art without frames: it held parched corn,
it covered the table where soup misted savor,
it covered the bed where the body knit
to self and other and the
dark wool of dreams."
Source: Marge Piercy, quoted by Elaine Hedges and
Ingrid Wendt, eds.. In Their Own Image: Women
Working in the Arts (New York: Feminist Press,
1980), 35-36.
36
treatment, expectations, and opportunities for males
and females were a major factor in Michelangelo's
time. Despite some progress toward greater gender
equality in recent years, these differences are still a
fact of life for our students today. St> the issue of
unequal access explored through art becomes
directly relevant to their lives.
Biases Related to the Nature
of Artistic Expression
Bias: Works in some media, such as painting and
sculpture, are simply more important than works
in lesser media, such as the "craft" of weaving.
Another assumption we often make about what art
is significant is that the best art is mostly "high art,"
characterized as paintings in gold frames, and sculp¬
tures such as Michelangelo's David. Although women
made such works, men made most of this so-called
"high art." Could a work done with needle, thread,
and fabric be an important work of art? Often, such
work has been relegated to a lesser category of
"craft" to distinguish its qualities from those viewed
as the more important qualities of "high art." Craft
works were much more likely to have been created
by women. Could that explain why craft works are
seldom included in discussions of important works of
art, such as those that appear in art survey texts?
This bias may also explain why critics and the public
often distinguish between craftspeople and "real"
artists. In the context of world cultures, a substantial
amount of artistic expression takes the form of aes¬
thetic objects created for use, such as pottery, tex¬
tiles, carvings, and furniture. Women often play
central roles in the creation of these objects that are
so important in the lives of people in many different
cultures.
Thinking about Art vs. Craft
Try This
In the late 1400s, several famous male painters in
Ask your students if a quilt can be a
Renaissance Italy, including Botticelli, routinely cre¬
"great work of art." What do their
ated designs for woven altarpieces, tapestries, and
answers tei! you about the assumptions
banners because, by guild regulations, no distinction
they make about art? Have your stu¬
could be made between imagery for embroidery and
dents compare a quilt and an abstract
imagery that would ultimately become a painting.
painting and point out what the two
However, as soon as this distinction was allowed in
have in common as works of art
the guilds, needlework rapidly became the work of
(thoughtful composition, use of ele¬
women amateur artists and came to signify qualities
ments and principles of art, relation to
of domesticity and femininity, rather than qualities
a particular time, place, and group of
of artistic excellence.
people, rich content, etc.). In this way,
No objective criteria exist for designating a partic¬
you may expand your students' concep¬
ular medium of artistic expression as more important
tion of art to include types of work done
than another. The range of types and forms of visual
primarily by women.
expression is extremely broad and continues to
expand with new technologies. Determinations of
relative value are always made by society and culture
and tend to reflect values of dominant groups in
that culture. Women have rarely been a part of
those groups, and what women value is not neces¬
sarily valued by the arbiters of culture and values in
a given society. Taking exception to these prevailing
views, Patricia Mainardi, in her essay "Quilts: The
Great American Art," challenges us to rethink the
notion of greatness in art, shifting from a traditional
male-dominated view to one that includes a female
perspective, when she asserts that quilts are actually
America's greatest form of art.9 She believes that the
quilts she describes are great art because they are
functional rather than purely ornamental. They are
original creations, rather than poor attempts to imi¬
tate European art, as were so many early American
paintings and sculptures. Used for both function and
display, the quilts were highly valued by their design¬
ers and those who owned them, and were created
collectively by women from several social classes.
Their rich symbols, forms, and stories transcend mere

Gender Issues in Art and Visual Culture

37
 functional aspects of design. Is there any reasonable
definition of art that would exclude these works?
Is it a cpincidence that what we usually consider
"high art" in the Western tradition tends to be the
kinds of work that support powerful social institu¬
tions, such as religion and government, and that we
tend to relegate work by women to second-class
status? A more complete picture of the history of
art, including the broader realm of visual culture,
should include not only women's work in the "high
arts" of painting and sculpture, but also their role
in many cultures, going back to antiquity, in practi¬
cal or applied arts, such as pottery and weaving.
Examining the diverse ways women of all societies,
past and present, have contributed to visual culture
can convey a more gender-equitable view of art to
our students. When individuals understand that art
exists in a context, they become more aware of their
own values and biases. As teachers, we can also
begin to ask how a work expresses a particular set of
historical circumstances, supports certain values, and
shapes our understanding of the world in particular
3.7 Emma Mae Leonhard, Century of Progress, c. 1933. 84 213 x
ways—including our views about gender.
75" (215 x 190 cm). Collection: University of Nebraska.
Such questions remove art from an isolated,
purely aesthetic realm, and allow students, as well,
to connect art to concerns in their own lives. From
the standpoint of gender issues, we can, as teachers,
include multiple gender perspectives; we can allow
girls and boys to draw on their own experiences, val¬
ues, and ideas; and we can challenge a narrow defi¬
nition of art that excludes much of the work done
by women. We can also broaden our focus from art
to visual culture, to include an even wider range of
representations that we can examine through the
lens of gender.
Recently, scholars in art history, art education,
and other fields have begun to suggest that art edu-

38 Chapter 3
cation, rather than focusing on fine art, should base
curriculum on forms of visual expression that teach¬
ers feel might be more relevant to their students,
such as film, video, and other forms of popular visual
culture. A broader approach to the images teachers
bring into the classroom can provide additional
avenues for making our students aware of women's
wide-ranging contributions to culture, and aware of
how images from many sources shape our notions of
gender. The authors suggest, however, that a bal¬
anced approach, which includes examples from all
types of visual expression including fine and popular
art forms, will provide the greatest range of oppor¬
tunities for exploring gender issues in meaningful
ways.
male nudes representing comparable roles can we
name? This imbalance is still evident in contempo¬
rary art. In general, the male perspective is often
treated as if it were universal. What about the per¬
spectives, values, and points of view of the other
half of humanity? The possibility of representing
others as we want them to be, of being the artist,
not the subject or object, is a type of power that tra¬
ditionally has been the almost exclusive property of
men, not only in art but in other areas of society as
well. We can challenge this power disparity in the
classroom by bringing out the voices of women and
girls.

Bias: Great art represents universal human values,

so it makes np difference if a work is by a man or
a woman.

Rather than assuming that the values and perspec¬

tives represented in art are universal, we can think
about how art and the way it is viewed and valued
is shaped by both the artist's and the viewers'
gender, ethnicity, class, and other significant
human characteristics.
Another important issue in relation to art and
gender is the question of whose point of view is
being represented, whose voice is being heard, who
is being represented, and who is doing the repre¬
senting. To whom is the work trying to appeal?
Much of what we consider significant art in the
Western tradition is created by men primarily for
other men and, coincidentally, women are often its
objects. The most obvious examples are the countless
female nudes in art from the Western tradition.
We are all familiar with the many representations
of goddesses, harem girls, etc. in the arts. How many

39
Gender Issues in Art and Visual Culture
 Try This

Choose two artworks, one by a male and

the other by a female artist, that portray

the same subject, such as these works by

Munch and Valadon. Point out to your

students that the works have the same

subject, in this case, the onset of

puberty. Do they represent the same

point of view? Ask your students which

one they think was created by the

female artist and which by the male

artist. What is the basis for their

answers? Discuss their reasoning. You

may find that very clear gender stereo¬

types emerge about which you can raise

questions.

3.9 Suzanne Valadon (French, 1865-1938), The Abandoned Doll, 1921.

Oil on canvas, 51 x 32" (129 x 81 cm). The National Museum of Women
in the Arts, Washington, DC. Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay.

3.8 Edvard Munch, Puberty, 1894,

National Gallery, Oslo, Norway.
Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

40 Chapter 3
Notes
1 Linda Nochlin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women
Artists?" (1971), Women, Art, and Power and Other
Essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 145-178.
Quote is from p. 146.

2 Nancy Heller, Women Artists: An Illustrated History, rev.

ed. (New York: Abbeville, 1987), 8.
3 Guerrilla Girls, Bedside Companion to the History of
Western Art (New York: Penguin Books, 1998).
4 Judy Chicago, Keynote address to the 1998 National Art
Education Association Convention.
5 Nochlin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women
Artists?" Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays.
6 On Sofonisba Anguissola, see Ilya Sandra Perlinghieri,
Sofonisba Anguissola: The First Great Woman Artist of
the Renaissance (New York: Rizzoli, 1992).
7 On the obstacles women faced, see Whitney Chadwick,
Women, Art, and Society, 3rd ed. (London: Thames and
Hudson, 2002), Ch. 5, 139-174.
V
8 On the difficulties women have faced in pursuing a
career in architecture, see Virginia Sapiro, "Gender and
the Institutional Media of Communication," Women in
American Society: An Introduction to Women's Studies,
4th ed. (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishers, 1999),
268; see also Clare Lorenz, Women in Architecture: A
Contemporary Perspective (New York: Rizzoli, 1990),
7-9.
9 Patricia Mainardi, "Quilts: The Great American Art,"
Feminist Art Journal 2, no. 1 (Winter, 1973): 1, 18-23.

41
Gender Issues in Art and Visual Culture
How Do Art and Visual Culture Shape
Our Views of Gender?

Artistic, commercial, and mass-media images created in a particular culture

are not simply a reflection of the dominant social, ethical, moral, or religious

values; they actually shape those values. Images, therefore, can have a pro¬

found impact on our lives and those of our students. If culture accepts that

images may actually alter the structure of values in society, individuals can

begin to understand how powerfully art and other forms of visual culture,

such as advertisements, shape our views of gender and the roles of women

and men in society.

Gender in the Media
"Our knowledge about human life is gained
secondhand from the mass media of communi¬
cation—radio, television, newspapers, and maga¬
zines—or from the artistic media of communication,
such as the performing, graphic, and literary arts.
For this reason, the collective normative power of
the people and the organizations who manage
these media is enormous."
Source: Virginia Sapiro, Women in American Society:
An Introduction to Women's Studies, 4th ed.
(Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishers, 1999),
243-280; quote is from p. 243.
Media Archetypes and Stereotypes
Try This: Contemporary advertising is full of arche¬
typal imagery. Introduce the concept of archetypes,
such as the Madonna, the witch, the hero, etc. Ask
students to find ads that show modern versions of
these archetypes. If possible, find ads from the
1950s or 1960s as well. Compare them with ads
from the 1990s to the present. Have the male and
female archetypes and images changed? Have each
student present and explain a favorite ad and dis¬
cuss it in terms of what it says about females and
males and their expected roles.
Visual Culture and Art Education
According to Walker and Chaplin, the field of visual
culture draws from the fine arts (painting, sculpture,
architecture, performance art, etc.), crafts and design
(urban design, body adornment, typography, etc.),
performing arts (including traditional artistic perfor¬
mances as well as theme parks, arcades, rock con¬
certs, video games, etc.), and mass and electronic
media (photography, film, advertising, television,
comics, etc.). As a subject worthy of study, it is
becoming increasingly a source of content for art
education curriculum development. Because fine art,
as traditionally taught in schools, has often been lim¬
ited by its historically modernist, Eurocentric roots
and a focus on formal or stylistic issues rather than
significant social and cultural issues associated with
the art object (performance, etc.), curriculum design
in art education calls for a change of thinking.
According to Freedman, "The importance of social
considerations, both of makers and viewers, has been
largely neglected in art education in the face of
social interpretations continually being carried along
in people's mind, images, and texts. As a result, a
social history of visual culture can be considered a
more enriching educational representation of art."1
In this sense, art education is aligning itself with
developments in art history, in which social and cul¬
tural perspectives have dominated methodology for
more than thirty years, and in which the debates
around visual culture continue.
Archetypes and Stereotypes
in Art Instruction
Fact: Archetypes and stereotypes in art and popular
imagery support gender biases and prejudices.
The images students see in art class are, of course,
only a small percentage of the hundreds of images
with which they are bombarded each day. This vast
Chapter 4
world of images from art and from popular culture
has a major impact on both boys' and girls' concep¬
tions of themselves, their conceptions of gender-
appropriate roles in society, and their relationships
with each other. By bringing this broader realm of
visual culture into our classrooms, we can identify
and dissect archetypes and stereotypes that reflect
and shape society's views of gender.
As we discussed earlier, many of the works of
"high art" and popular culture depict images of
women. The nature of these images is worth consid¬
ering. What do they say about what it means to be
female? Who is the apparent audience for which
these works are intended? A surprising number of
the images of women in high art fall into one of
three broad categories, called "archetypes." These
female archetypes can be thought of as the points of
a triangle, as we see below: the image of ideal per¬
fection, epitomized in Western art by the image of
the Madonna, who presents an image of unattain¬
able perfection and absolute purity; the beautiful,
sexually desirable female body, as in the images of
Venus, the goddess of love; and the evil woman,
as in images of Eve or witches. Obviously, not all
images of women fall into these archetypal
categories, but a surprising number of them do.
One way of demonstrating this to your students is
Madonna
Female Archetypes
How Do Art and Visual Culture Shape Our Views of Gender?
to have them look for these archetypes in any art
history text. Each of these categories presents a
different view of what being female means; yet
certain generalizations apply to the majority of
images we see.
In many artistic traditions, including Western art,
the female nude is considered the embodiment of
beauty, both the ideal and even the divine. At the
same time, the representation of the female nude
reduces a woman to a desirable but anonymous
body and conveys the message that female sexuality
exists for the pleasure of the male viewer.2 Why isn't
the male nude as common in Western art as the
female nude? The message suggested by these
images seems to be that the male access to the
female body is a right. Is this a message we want
to present uncritically to an impressionable adoles¬
cent audience? Art has made images of the female
body on display seem "natural," or simply a symbol
of ideal beauty, while obscuring the fact that the
prevalence of the female nude is also a symbol of
men's power over women. Even if we never show
a nude in class, much of Western art and popular
culture presents the female for the pleasure of
the male gaze. The difference between being the
source of the gaze or its recipient is obvious to
anyone who has ever been the object of unwanted
attention by someone else. This idea certainly means
something to our adolescent students. This is not
to suggest that we should remove female nudes
or male nudes from our curricula. Rather, we can
provide students with the critical tools and insights
to understand how these images function in art
and in society.
The Madonna and other such idealized images
project an ideal of unattainable perfection. If one
has any doubt about the power that images of per¬
fection have on our students' lives, one need only
consider the incidence of eating disorders among
45

4.7 Hans Baldung Grien, The Fates, 7570, engraving.
National Gallery of Art.
adolescent girls, which have been clearly tied to feel¬
ings of physical imperfection and inadequacy. It
seems likely that images of female perfection con¬
tribute to these feelings of inadequacy.
Very often, when women are shown as powerful
or in control, they are also shown as evil; whereas
for men, power is a positive attribute. Two examples
equating power and evil in women are images of
Eve, who is blamed, in the Christian tradition, for the
"Fall of Man"; and witches, who were viewed as
deviants deserving execution for consorting with the
devil. Other images, including many in mass and
popular imagery, simply show women as adornments
or passive spectators.
Women in art and popular imagery are rarely
represented as autonomous, powerful, and self-
possessed individuals. Let us take a closer look at
the painting The Academicians of the Royal
Academy (1771-1772) by Johannn Zoffany (Figure
3.6), which was introduced earlier. It is a perfect
example of how our views of imagery in art can
affect our views of gender. In this painting, two
founding members of the Royal Academy, Mary
Moser and Angelica Kauffmann, are represented
through the imagery of two portrait busts hanging
on the right wall, while their male colleagues are
presented in a collective pose studying a male nude.
Beneath and to the side of the nude model, a female
plaster torso rests on the floor next to a male artist
in the right foreground who pokes his walking stick
into the torso to maintain his heroic stance. It is a
not-so-subtle metaphor for male domination and
female subjugation. Rather than being considered as
an integral part of this academic membership, the
two women artists were marginalized and silenced
in this representation.
The painting is more than a group portrait; it is a
representation of the very nature of art as it was

46 Chapter 4
understood at that time, which was heavily depen¬ Gender in the Media
dent on studying the nude. Since, as we previously
In a content analysis of Seventeen maga¬
discussed, women were not allowed to study the
zine in 1951, 1971, and 1991, for exam¬
nude until the late nineteenth century, the two
ple, nearly one-third of the total content
women who were founding members of the Acad¬
focused on the theme of beauty during
emy are not represented as living human beings like
this forty-year span of time. Occurrence
their male counterparts. Women, who in this
of political themes in those same maga¬
instance are makers of art, are reduced to nothing
zines ranged from 2 percent of the total
more than objects of art—barely distinguishable
content in 1951 to a high of 7 percent in
portraits on the wall. The women in this image are
1971. Attention to minority issues and
only conspicuous if one is made aware of their
images ranged from 30 percent of the
absence. How many areas of our school curriculum
content in 1950, to 9 percent in 1971
are similar, in that they are presented as if women
and to 24 percent in 1991.3
played no active role? Sometimes what teachers
Images of women and girls in commer¬
don't say can send a more powerful message than
cial advertising are also gender biased.
what they do say. If girls aren't given role models for
One 1994 study concluded that in televi¬
achievement in art, in science, and in other areas,
sion commercials targeted for children,
how can they.envision themselves in these roles?
many more boys than girls were fea¬
If most images of women in high art have their
tured as actors, and the boys played
negative side, they seem almost benign in compari¬
active roles occurring in a fantasy setting
son to images of women in popular culture, both in
or in a place outside the home. In con¬
mass and commercial media. Most representations of
trast, girls were most often depicted
women, whether in high or popular culture, put the
in passive activities within the home
focus on appearance rather than activity or achieve¬
setting.4
ment. In the popular realm to which our students
are constantly exposed, we need only to turn to an
issue of a popular teen magazine to confirm this
observation.
In fact, we can find popular equivalents to all the
major female archetypes that appear in high art. We
will see in the following chapters how the art class¬
room provides us with the opportunity to dissect
these archetypes and stereotypes, and hopefully, to
reduce their power to shape students' lives.
Of course, many artworks and popular images
represent men as well. These works both shape our
ideas about what is male, and by exclusion, what is
not female. For example, when we see an image of a

How Do Art and Visual Culture Shape Our Views of Gender? 47

 Try This
Have each student choose a work of art
that depicts men and women. Have
them create a version in which the roles
of men and women are reversed. Display
the works and discuss them. What does
this exercise teach about gender roles in
art? You may find that this exercise is
useful in revealing some of society's hid¬
den assumptions about gender roles.
4.2 Miriam Schapiro (American, b. 1923), Gonchorova, from
the folio "Delaunay, Gonchorova, Popova and Me," 1992,
Serigraph on handmade paper, 28 1/2 x 22 3/8" (75 x 57 cm).
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.
Museum Purchase: unrestricted funds.
48
king, with his queen sitting dutifully at his side, we
receive a clear statement about who has the power
and who is subordinate.
Although the context in many works of art may
be historical, the artwork's message succeeds in shap¬
ing our students' attitudes about gender, in combi¬
nation with the countless gender-biased images with
which they are constantly bombarded in popular cul¬
ture. Think about how archetypes presented in art
and popular culture give very different messages to
boys and girls. Boys see their gender identity in
images of rulers, statesmen, heroes, and strong
laborers. These images are generally active and pow¬
erful. Girls, on the other hand, see gendered images
of passivity, dependence, impossible perfection, or
insignificance.
The Male Perspective Taken as Universal
Fact: Since the male perspective predominates, it is
taken as universal. Art makes this seem "natural,"
reinforcing power disparities between males and
females.
Since the power to represent their particular
point of view in both art and other forms of visual
culture has been overwhelmingly the prerogative of
men, they have been able to represent their views as
universal, as if they applied to women as well as
men. Recall Buzz Aldrin's first immortal words from
the moon: "That's one small step for man; one giant
leap for mankind." As we have noted, language
shapes our views of and expectations concerning
gender.
Studies have shown that when the masculine pro¬
noun is used, both boys and girls are less likely to see
women in a particular role. How does this affect
girls' sense of future possibilities in art and in other
areas? Miriam Schapiro, a founder of the feminist art
movement, recollects that when she was developing
Chapter 4
as a young artist, she felt she had no predecessors
because no one even mentioned women's contribu¬
tions to the history of art. To fill this void, she cre¬
ated a series of works honoring her artistic
"foremothers" which she called Collaborations.5
Sometimes, the view that the male perspective is
universal is expressed in terms of "culture" being the
realm of men, and "nature" being the realm of
women. These issues of Nature and Culture, pro¬
posed as two ends of a scale by the anthropologist
Claude Levi-Strauss, were the product of his
attempts to explain how different societies have
placed value on objects, rituals, and events within
"Men act and women appear. Men look at women.
Women watch themselves being looked at. This
determines not only most relations between men
and women but also the relation of women to
themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is
male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself
into an object—and most particularly an object of
vision: a sight."
Source: John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: BBC
and Penguin Books, 1972), 47.
The male artist's portrait of a woman shows her

their cultural context. It is too simple to say that "not as she is, but as she fills his dream."

women and their objects, work, and rituals only Source: Christina Rossetti, poet and sister of the
belong to the field of Nature (childbirth, sustenance, British pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel
etc.). We can see how society has given women's Rossetti, In an Artist's Studio, quoted in Elaine
work (art or otherwise) a secondary status because it Hedges and Ingrid Wendt, In Her Own Image:
has been seen as instinctual, rather than intellectual; Women Working in the Arts (New York: The
private, rather than public; and domestic, rather Feminist Press, 1980), 168.
than professional. The contemporary artist Barbara
Kruger plays with this notion in her photograph and
text collage entitled "Untitled, (We Won't Play
Nature to Your Culture)" (1983). Contemporary
works such as Kruger's make excellent resources for
teaching, especially secondary students, about how
society constructs notions of both gender and art.
When men represent women as if they only
existed to be looked at by men, the implication is
that the only important aspect of women is their
appearance and their attractiveness to men, and
that women want to be seen in this way. In addition,
perspectives of the females who constitute half of
the human race are seldom represented, and when
they are, they are seen as only referring to women's
personal or private experience and not of universal
interest. Just as we tend to see images of the domi¬
nant culture as universal, while viewing images of

How Do Art and Visual Culture Shape Our Views of Gender? 49


4.3 Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach: Woman on the Bridge #1, 1988.
Acrylic on canvas, 74 x 69“ (188 x 175 cm). Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, NY. Photo: The artist.
What does the artist tell us about her personal experience?
What universal aspects of human experience are represented
in this work?
50
minority people as being solely about them, we tend
to view male perspectives as universal, and women's
as female.. If they are women of color, their voice is
hushed even further in its cultural outreach.
Faith Ringgold, a significant Ame'rican artist
known for her story quilts, paintings, and fiction,
such as her book for children based on the work Tar
Beach, draws upon her personal experience as
mother, art educator, and artist of color, yet she pre¬
sents us with universal human stories, dilemmas, and
triumphs. Since society tends to regard the male per¬
spective as universal, whether in art or in other areas
of society, people often don’t even notice that
women's voices are absent. When women and girls
do speak, we tend to pay less attention to them and
see their views as narrow, limited, and not of gen¬
eral interest. This is true in the art world, and, unless
teachers change what and how they teach, it will be
equally true in the art classroom. Think about how
impoverished our views are if we exclude the per¬
spectives of half of humanity.
Theorists have noted that many works of art and
other types of imagery, such as those found in film or
advertising, seem as if they were created for a male
viewer. In fact, the male "gaze" of the viewer toward
female subjects in painting and sculpture is pervasive
in the history of Western art. The biblical story of
Susanna, the chaste wife of Joachim, and the Elders
who tried to obtain her sexual submission by threat¬
ening her with a false charge of adultery, has been a
popular subject. Male painters from the sixteenth
through the twentieth centuries, including Annibale
Carracci, Domenichino, Tintoretto, Massimo
Stanzione, Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt, Thomas
Hart Benton and others, seized on this biblical theme.
At least one aspect of its appeal to these men was
that it presented a rich opportunity to create a dis¬
play of female nudity around a popular narrative.
Chapter 4
 These painters depict Susanna as a complex
combination of Eve, the temptress, and Venus, the
embodiment of female sexuality from a male's per¬
spective. A very different point of view is presented
in Artemesia Gentileschi's 1610 painting of Susanna.
In her interpretation of this theme, Susanna appears
as a real person, an unwilling victim of the male
gaze and desires, caught in a no-win dilemma.
The situation of powerful men taking advantage
of vulnerable women is not confined to art, but
Gentileschi's treatment of the theme is the only one
4.4 Massimo Stanzione, Susanna and the Elders,
which reveals the perspective of the woman in such
1631-1637. Oil on canvas, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha,
a situation. NE. How is the female artist's view of the situation
Gentileschi shows the events from a woman's different from the male's?

point of view, that of someone who is the victim of

4.5 Artemesia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders,
unwanted advances.
1610. Oil on canvas, 67x47 1/2" (170 x 121 cm).
Schonborn Collection, Pommersfelden. Photo:
Marburg/Art Resource, NY.

51
How Do Art and Visual Culture Shape Our Views of Gender?
Gendered Language
Art and Popular Imagery Reinforce
Feminine Stereotypes
Try This: Ask your students to group
Fact: Art and other types of visual culture reinforce
descriptive adjectives about art accord¬
existing stereotypes of what is considered "feminine."
ing to gender. Which words are seen as
Another way in which people's views of art shape
describing "masculine" qualities, and
perceptions of gender is the way they attribute gen¬
which words are seen as describing
der to certain media and even to stylistic characteris¬
"feminine" qualities? Which set of quali¬
tics within works of art. What is meant when we
ties is deemed more valuable? This activ¬
describe a work of art as "bold" or "daring?"
ity is an interesting one for teachers of
One might start, for example, with a discussion
the fourth grade and higher.
about traditional nineteenth-century watercolor
paintings, which have often been identified as being
pretty in form, pastel in color, flowing in composi¬
tion, and gentle in rhythm. Although there were
male watercolorists, the medium was seen as some¬
what "feminine" and not generally held in high
esteem. We might ask whether the qualities we
attribute to such works are based on objective
description, or have more to do with biases we have
about the nature of the medium and the gender and
character of the artist. We might conclude this explo¬
ration by studying the paintings of Jaune Quick-to-
See Smith whose strong work in water-media directly
refutes these biases and generalizations.
Critics often reveal more about their own biases
and values than they tell about the work they are
supposedly discussing. Women artists have borne the
brunt of some of the strongest attacks, sometimes
from female as well as male critics.
There are many ways gender bias can affect art
criticism. In the classroom, teachers' reactions some¬
times depend more on the gender of the student
giving the answer, than the quality of what is said.
In art terms, teachers may not always give the same
level of critical attention to works by women as
those by men, or they may assume that, because a
work is by a woman, it can't have deep meaning or
serious significance. Such critical biases can really
interfere with our understanding and full apprecia¬
tion of works of art. Paintings of flowers, a genre
often identified as "feminine," and somewhat frivo¬
lous, provide an excellent example. Do all flower
paintings, such as those by Rachel Ruysch or Georgia
O'Keeffe, fit this image of lack of substance?
Ruysch's paintings, although delightful to look at,
were an important part of the Dutch art scene of the
seventeenth century, in which flowers symbolized
the fleeting qualities of life and were highly valued.
Critics have often assumed that women are "natu¬
rally" drawn to such subjects because of their beauty
and "feminine" qualities. As we have seen, however,
this was more a matter of artistic training and
opportunity, than the "nature" of women artists.
What about the flower paintings created by
Georgia O'Keeffe, a twentieth-century American
painter? Would it help students to know that she
chose flowers as a subject not because she liked
flowers or thought that women should paint pretty
floral compositions, but because flowers were inex¬
pensive, yet incredibly complex forms that did not
move at all. From these forms, she could easily
express her personal vision. Refusing to see O'Keeffe's
choice of subject as an intellectual one, critics argued
that she was simply expressing her essential "femi¬
ninity" and interpreted her forms as sexual meta¬
phors, a misrepresentation which enraged the artist.
The Role Images Play in Shaping Our
Understanding of Gender and Sexual Identity
Fact: Images shape what it means to be "male" or
"female" in society, and help establish boundaries
between what is, and is not, acceptable for each
gender. In turn, for art or popular imagery to be
widely accepted, it must reinforce the prevailing
gender values in society. Art reflects society's values,
but it also shapes and reinforces them.
How Do Art and Visual Culture Shape Our Views of Gender?
The Critic Speaks
Excerpt from a review by a female art critic in Art
News of the exhibition "Man and Wife" (authors'
emphasis), featuring artists who were married
couples, held in New York in 1949:
"On the other side of the fence (and in the majority),
however, are those wives who, stylistically at least, are
tied to their husbands' apron strings ... there also is a
tendency to 'tidy-up' their husbands' styles. Lee Krasner
(Mrs. Jackson Pollock) takes her husband's paints and
enamels and changes his unrestrained sweeping lines
into prim little squares and triangles... ."6
Discussion Point: How has this art critic's gender bias
affected even the choice of words she uses to
describe art, as well as her overall opinion of the
quality of the work done by women? When a per¬
son's choice of words carries a negative meaning,
that person is biased. "Prim" and "tidy-up" are clearly
insulting terms when used to describe Krasner's
work. In what ways does the title of the exhibition
("Man and Wife") diminish our sense of the female
artist's contributions?
4.6 Lee Krasner (American, 1908-1984), The Springs, 1964, Oil on canvas,
43 x 66" (109 x 168 cm). The National Museum of Women in the Arts,
Washington, DC. Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay.
53
 Gender in Ads
Try This: Have students collect images in the adver¬
tising media. Discuss how often they see men
changing diapers or cooking. Who is seated around
the boardroom table and who is at its head? These
images can have a profound effect on our students'
views of gender.
4.7 Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun (French,
1755-1842), Self-Portrait, 1790. Uffizi, Florence,
Italy. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.
4.8 Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun (French,
1755-1842), Hubert Robert, 1788, Louvre, Paris.
Photo: Lauros-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY.
Discussion Point: Both of these portraits are by
Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun, one of the leading por¬
trait painters in late eighteenth-century Europe. Which
of these images more closely fits your mental image of
the artist at work? Why? Why does the artist show
herself painting in a fancy dress? What does this tell us
about common assumptions concerning art and gen¬
der? The artist must show herself as a proper, upper-
class woman as well as an artist. The male artist does
not suffer from the same constraints.
An example of this principle in operation can be
seen in women artists' self-portraits. From the six¬
teenth through the nineteenth centuries, women
painting self-portraits almost always represented
themselves as elegant, fashionable ladies first, and
painters second, as in Vigee-Lebrun's Self-Portrait
below. Playing two roles, proper woman and artist,
at the same time was something male artists did not
have to do. Did this mean, as has sometimes been
claimed, that these women artists were simply more
vain and frivolous than their male counterparts? Or
was it because women always had to prove that they
could be artists without compromising their feminin¬
ity? What similar constraints exist for women and
girls today? How are men and boys constrained by
society's images of masculinity?
The Virginia Slims company, in its "You've Come
A Long Way Baby" campaign, posed a young woman
as Napoleon with his easily recognizable uniform,
setting, and gesture of the hand in the coat. The
caption is: "What if history had been berstory?"
What does such an ad say about gender roles in
society? What messages does it convey? It seems to
appeal to a feminist perspective in order to sell
cigarettes. The implication seems to be that strong
women smoke Virginia Slims. By understanding how
images create meaning, we and our students
become analytical and critical viewers and gain con¬
trol over the endless flood of images with which we
are bombarded daily. In addition, all our students
can begin to create images in a thoughtful way that
convey their perspectives and values. If we under¬
stand that female voices are just as important as
male voices, we will make certain that both are
heard.
As we move into Chapter 5, we will further
explore how notions of gender and of art have
implications for what we teach, and how we teach,
in our art classrooms.
How Do Art and Visual Culture Shape Our Views of Gender?
Notes
1 John A. Walker and Sarah Chaplin, Visual Culture: An
Introduction (New York: Manchester University Press,
1997). Quote taken from Kerry Freedman, Teaching
Visual Culture: Curriculum, Aesthetics, and the Social
Life of Art (New York: Teachers College Press and
Reston, VA: National Art Education Association, 2003),
p. xiii. For further information regarding contemporary
visual culture, see also Malcolm Bernard, Approaches to
Understanding Visual Culture (New York: PALGRAVE,
2001) and Richard Howells, Visual Culture (Malden, ME:
Blackwell Publishers, 2003). Another helpful resource
that discusses issues of popular as well as visual culture
is Carla Freccero's Popular Culture: An Introduction
(New York: New York University Press, 1999).
2 On the nude, see Gill Saunders, The Nude: A New
Perspective (New York: Harper and Row, 1989).
3 Virginia Sapiro, "Gender and the Institutional Media of
Communication," Women in American Society: An
Introduction to Women's Studies, 4th ed. (Mountain
View, CA: Mayfield Publishers, 1999), 256-257.
4 Ibid., 266.
5 On Miriam Schapiro, see Norma Broude and Mary D.
Garrard, eds., The Power of Feminist Art (New York:
Abrams, 1994), 32-87.
6 Excerpt from review in Art News by G.T.M. (Gretchen T.
Munsen) of the exhibition "Man and Wife," Oct., 1949,
quoted in Anne M. Wagner, "Lee Krasner as L.K.," in
Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, The Expanding
Discourse: Feminism and Art History (New York:
HarperCollins, 1992), 427.
55
Transforming Curriculum to Foster
Gender Equity
"If it were customary to send little girls to school and to teach them the same subjects as are
taught to boy's{ they would learn just as fully and would understand the subtleties of all the
arts and sciences."

—Christine de Pisan, Cite des Dames, Venice, (1405).1

In order to address concerns and issues highlighted in previous chapters,

we need to make adaptations, both in what we select for content in an art

program and how we present that content. This chapter suggests ways to

transform the content—what we teach. (Chapter 6 addresses strategies for

teaching this gender-equitable content, particularly in art classroom contexts,

where some unique opportunities arise for providing both a gender-equitable

approach to education, and a meaningful education about gender.) A consider¬

ation of gender issues in the classroom is absolutely essential to creating equal

opportunity for girls as well as boys. Our role as educators challenges us to

redress inequities that have existed in the past and persist today.

5.7 Louisa Courtauld (English, 1729-1807), Pair of
George III Tea Caddies, 1766, Silver, Each: 7 3/8x4 1/8
x 4“ (19 x 10 x 10 cm). The National Museum of
Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Silver collection
assembled by Nancy Valentine. Purchased with funds
donated by Mr. and Mrs. Oliver R. Grace and family.
58
Suggestions for art content provide ways to think
about gender in relation to art and other subject
matter. Curriculum content in art lessons can
*
enhance or illuminate students' understanding of
gender as well as art. If women, women's issues and
perspectives, and women's voices are not present in
both the "written" and the "hidden" curricula,
teachers will simply be confirming that art is some¬
thing created by men, for men; and that, as with so
many other areas of society and culture, women's
views do not matter.
Define Art Broadly
Students shape their ideas about art in a variety of
ways. Select gender-equitable concepts of art as you
plan lessons. The view of art presented in many
art history and art education texts is not gender-
inclusive or gender-equitable, although some
notable progress in this area is occurring. Texts that
focus primarily on "high" art such as painting or
sculpture generally minimize or ignore the role of
women, and the very notion of "high" art marginal¬
izes many forms of artistic expression traditionally
associated with women. Some suggestions for this
broader approach follow.
Analyze Books for Gender Equity
First, evaluate content in currently available curricu¬
lum materials. When women are included in texts,
are they discussed in terms of their individual ideas
and contributions? Are women mentioned more
briefly than their male counterparts or dismissed as
mere pupils of male artists? Are the factors that
shape women artists' experiences discussed? Are
women artists' perspectives and views treated seri¬
ously? Does the chosen text reinforce stereotypes
about gender? When discussing a popular move¬
ment, such as Impressionism, are female as well as
Chapter 5
male artists included? Although it may be conve¬
nient to use or refer solely to examples found in
available texts, teachers may be perpetuating gen¬
der-biased ideas about art and artists by limiting
themselves to these resources.
Fill in Gaps about Women and Art
To counteract the limitations of using only fine
art examples in lessons, begin to collect specific
resources relating to women, their art, and contribu¬
tions to visual culture. These might include reproduc¬
tions of works by women in a broad range of media
and forms of creative expression, sources of informa¬
tion about women artists' lives and the times in
which they lived, and writings by women critics,
aestheticians, art historians, and artists. Women
artists can also be brought in from the community.
These new materials, approaches, and resources can
be used to present a more gender-equitable view
of art.
Attend to Gender Connections to Art Year-Round
Arrange for discussions of women's contributions
beyond Women's History month so that their partici¬
pation in creating cultural history does not appear as
unusual or exceptional. Include women artists of
color in lessons as an integral part of the curriculum
throughout the year and not just during Black
History month, for example. The particular focus on
women's contributions during these months can be
useful in heightening awareness, but be conscious of
where women appear in the curriculum during the
other eight months of the school year.
Include a Wide Range of Art Media
Present a rich, varied conception of art and visual
culture through media and techniques included in
Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity
the curriculum. For example, when weaving (an art
associated with women in many cultures) is dis¬
cussed with the same seriousness and attention
devoted to the study of painting (an art form
dominated by men), this form of artistic expression
traditionally associated with women, and often
assigned second-class status, can serve to broaden
students' conception of art. By extension, women
artists who are weavers are dignified, opening up
the possibility for both boys and girls to explore
the medium.
Highlight Artists' Roles in Diverse Societies
Discuss how some cultures assign responsibility for
certain artistic creations to women and certain
others to men; in many of these cultures, all the
creations are regarded as important and equal in
value to the society. Women in the Hopi culture
from the southwestern United States traditionally
have been responsible for creating basketry and
pottery used both in ceremonial and daily life.
Men were expected to gather fiber, spin yarn, and
weave garments and blankets for their families.
Such discussions can break down stereotypes and
broaden students' perceptions of the relationship
between artistic expression and gender.
Critique the Canon of Art
As we select and present art content to students for
exploration, we can distinguish between implicit or
more direct means of critiquing the most commonly
accepted examples of significant art.
Provide Indirect Approaches to Critique the Canon
In planning lessons, simply presenting a variety of
diverse works by women, particularly artworks not
represented in displays or discussions of traditional
59
 The Artist Speaks

One of the first artists to work in an entirely non¬

objective manner was Sonia Terk-Delaunay. The

occasion was prompted by the birth of a son to her

and Robert Delauna^ in 1911. She described the

project in the following way:

"I had the idea of making ... a blanket composed

of bits of fabrics like those I had seen in the homes

of Russian peasants. When it was finished, the

arrangements of the pieces of material seemed to

me to evoke Cubist conceptions, and we tried then

to apply the same process to other objects and

painting."

Source: Sonia Terk-Delaunay, quoted in Elsa Honig

Fine, "Women Artists and the Twentieth Century

Art Movements: from Cubism to Abstract

Expressionism," Judy Loeb, ed.. Feminist Collage:

Educating Women in the Visual Arts (New York:

Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1979),

22-23.

Discussion Point: In what ways does this account

challenge our usual conceptions of "high" or impor¬

tant and "low" or less important art; and of the pri¬

5.2 Sonia Terk-Delaunay (Russian, 1885-1979), Untitled, macy usually given to work by male artists? A quilt
n.d. Lithograph on Paper (ed. 12/25), diameter: 29 118 x 25"
by a woman may well have been one of the first
(74 x 64 cm). The National Museum of Women in the Arts,
pieces of nonobjective art in the twentieth century.
on loan from private collection.
The male artist Robert Delaunay was influenced by

the work of his wife Sonia Terk-Delaunay. People

often assume that artistic influence always goes

from the male artist to his female follower or imita¬

tor. Here the opposite is true!

60 Chapter 5
"high art" media, is an indirect critique of the canon
or the "code of worthiness" discussed in Chapter 4.
Focusing on examples of quilts, embroidery, body
adornment, pottery, or other artifacts from material
culture challenges the idea that all art worth consid¬
eration consists of painting, sculpture, or architecture
by white males of European heritage. Teachers can
go a step further:
Directly Critique the Canon of Art
Using examples of art that are outside the usual
"great" works by predominately Western male
artists, stress what art you consider to be most
important, and why that art is an object of inquiry
in your classroom. Raise the issue of why painting,
for example, has always been considered a major
form of artistic expression, while objects such as
ceramics or weavings, which often play important
roles in many cultures, have been relegated to
the status of a "minor art" or "craft." As a basis
for the discussion, reveal that throughout time,
art forms considered the most important by those
in power have generally been those that served
some public function, particularly those that sup¬
ported dominant political, religious, or cultural
institutions.
Artists within the canon (usually male) are
assumed to be great by nature. To challenge this
assumption, teachers can have students consider the
variety of social factors that have affected the ability
of men and women to pursue artistic careers.
Virtually all of these factors have favored men.
Further, when students are asked to study the views
of female art historians and quote female art critics
and aestheticians, it is clear that women, as well
as men, can relate to art in a wide variety of ways
and have opinions worthy of respect. This content
Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity
Women's Sphere
in the Practical Arts
"Women have always made art. But for
most women, the arts highest valued by
male society have been closed to them
for just that reason. They have put their
creativity instead into the needlework
arts which exist in fantastic variety
wherever there are women, and which
in fact are a universal female art, tran¬
scending race, class, and national bor¬
ders. Needlework is the one art in which
women controlled the education of their
daughters and the production of the art,
and were also the audience and critics."
Source: Patricia Mainardi, "Quilts, The
Great American Art," Feminist Art
Journal, Winter 1973, 36-68.
provides examples for girls, as well as boys, that
reinforce the legitimacy of their ideas, opinions,
and perspectives.
Show Multiple Perspectives
Students are often unaware of the multiple mean¬
ings and interpretations of artworks. Teachers can
facilitate students' explorations of them by refram¬
ing questions about and approaches to art. Here are
some suggestions:
Consider Sexual Orientation as an Aspect
of Gender
Allow students to explore how gender and sexual
orientation affect artistic expression. When explor-
61
Beyond Georgia O'Keeffe pursue art at the turn of the twentieth century than

did America. Fuller, a student of Rodin, was a

In a telephone interview with forty K-12 art special¬
respected sculptor and a forerunner of the Harlem
ists to determine which women artists were an inte¬
Renaissance in the United States.
gral part of their curriculum, every interviewed

teacher knew about Georgia O'Keeffe, Faith Laura Gilpin exemplifies those artists who use pho¬

Ringgold, and Mary Cassatt.2 However, many of tography, technology, or nontraditional materials in

these teachers were developing interesting lessons their art. She is a well-known photographer whose

around the imagery and ideas of several other images focus on the peoples and landscape of the

regional or national contemporary women artists. Southwest.

The authors have listed twelve of them below. Elizabeth Layton was an intuitive artist without for¬
These artists have made substantive contributions mal training who turned to art late in life. Layton
to the art world. Do some research about their lives began drawing in her seventies as an antidote to
and work as possible sources for new curricula. An depression.
excellent source with which to begin is Pioneering
Hung Liu* and Bettye Saar* exemplify artists who
Spirits: The Lives and Times of Remarkable Women
offer powerful narratives through their imagery
Artists in Western History.3 If this text includes
which focus on cultural diversity and oppression in
information about an artist below, her name is
America.
highlighted with an asterisk.
Sisters Berthe and Edma Morisot* were significant
Alice Aycock* is an artist who creates monumental
artists who shared a close bond as fellow painters.
sculptures designed to be a part of communities
Edma, who often modeled for Berthe, traded her
and to be placed outside traditional art galleries.
own painting career for marriage when she was a
Aycock has created outdoor sculpture as part of the
young woman.
Art in Public Places Program in the United States.
Mattie Lou O'Kelly is an example of artists who
Selma Burke* was an artist in a category of artists
have established regional significance and whose
whose contributions are not always included in the
art represents a unique time and place in culture.
world of fine art, yet we have contact with her
O'Kelly is a well-known Georgia artist.
work every day. Burke was commissioned to do the

portrait sculpture of Benjamin Franklin that is found Jaune Quick-to-See Smith* is one of several artists

on the surface of every dime in Americans' pockets. who are also political activists and carriers of cul¬

tural tradition. Smith is a nationally known contem¬

Emily Carr exemplified artists who were respected
porary painter.
for their writing as well as their imagery. Carr was

one of Canada's most famous painters during the Patty Warashina exemplifies artists who create art

twentieth century. outside the canon of "fine art," using clay, fiber, or

other functional media. Warashina is a well-known

Meta Warrick Fuller* was a significant American
West Coast ceramic artist.
artist of color who lived in Europe because it

offered a more supportive environment in which to

Chapter 5
ing the meaning of a work of art, ask how the gen¬
der and/or the sexual orientation of the artist
shaped the work. Check and Lampela point out
that the sexual orientation of twentieth-century
artists such as Romaine Brooks, Charles Demuth,
Laura Gilpin, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Robert
Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol is fundamental to
the content of their art.4 To disregard or ignore this
reality distorts and trivializes the artists' works.
Homosexuality is an ancient reality, and the level of
its acceptance has varied over time and across cul¬
tures.5 Although the term "homosexual" is a nine¬
teenth-century coinage, many artists throughout
5.3 Paula Modersohn-Becker (German, 1876-1907), Sitting Female
Nude, 1906. Charcoal on paper, 11 3/8 x 8 3/8“ (29 x 21 cm). The
National Museum of Women in the Arts. Gift of Wallace and
Wilhelmina Holladay.
Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity
history were other than exclusively heterosexual,
and in some cases, the artist's sexual orientation
seems to be reflected in his or her art. Michel¬
angelo and Caravaggio would be in this group, as
would Rosa Bonheur. In some instances, it may be
appropriate to consider the issue of sexual orienta¬
tion in order to honestly explicate a given body of
work. By doing so, teachers also break down barri¬
ers of silence and invisibility for gay and lesbian art
students.
Seek and Apply Information
from Current Research
When teachers choose to inform themselves, they
can be guided in their approach to issues of gender
equality and sexual orientation in the art classroom
by current research and professional dialogue in
the fields of art, aesthetics, history, criticism, sociol¬
ogy, psychology, and pedagogy. For example,
researchers might assist a teacher by providing
current data for selections of artists to be featured
in lessons or offer criteria for selection of works
of art that can guide teachers' displays of art in
classrooms.
Consider the Audience
Ask students to explore questions about the
intended audience for Modersohn-Becker's work in
terms of gender. For example, the female nude
seems to presume a male audience. Students can
discuss the fact that the unclothed human form has
usually been an object of beauty or desire, particu¬
larly in the Western tradition of art history. Is there
a difference between naked and nude? Assist high
school students in recognizing artworks in which
nude imagery defies or goes beyond the notion of
the male "gaze" and female human forms as
"objects" (see sample lesson 4 in Chapter 7).
63
 Relate Personal Identity and Artistic Expression
The Artist Speaks
Provide opportunities for students to create art that
"I feel issues of sex and gender have
allows them to express their gender and other
always been at the core of art, along *

aspects of their personal identity. Help students to

with all the other profound concerns of
understand that their ideas about self and gender
human beings (to name a few—procre¬ \

are a product of a socialization process that begins

ation, growth, aggression, hunger,
at birth. The authors are not suggesting that gender
aging, fear, death, etc.). I argue that the
and other personal issues need to play a role in
eternal question 'What Is Art?' can be
every assignment or discussion. However, it is
answered in this way—Art is the great¬
extremely important that some of the art-making
est possible rationalization of our deep¬
assignments allow students to explore many aspects
est fears, joys, and instincts as human
of their personal identity, including their ethnic
beings. Beautiful nudes make it possible
background, gender, sexual orientation, or ethical
for us to contemplate our sexuality in
beliefs. Facilitate this activity by showing works by
safety."
artists in which these aspects of personal identity are
Source: Martha Erlebacher, quoted in
explored and discuss them in those terms. For exam¬
Edward Lucie-Smith, Race, Sex and
ple, the works of the German twentieth-century
Gender in Contemporary Art (London:
artist Kathe Kollwitz focus on key aspects of contem¬
Art Books International, 1994), 165-166.
porary social life seen from a particular woman's
point-of-view (see lesson 3 in Chapter 7). Drawing on
community-based artists of diverse backgrounds can
facilitate this exploration for students in an immedi¬
ate and personally meaningful way, as has been sug¬
gested by Kristin Congdon in her recent book
Community Art in Action (Davis Publications, Inc.).

Explore How Gender Affects Artistic Expression

Although gender may affect artistic expression, it
does not determine it. Focus on how society and cul¬
ture shape the different experiences and expecta¬
tions of males and females. This often results in a
different approach to the same subject, as seen in
the two versions of Susanna and the Elders discussed
previously. From this perspective, the point is clear
that men and women are positioned differently in
society. With differing expectations placed upon
them, men and women often have different experi¬
ences of the world and, thus, often take different

64 Chapter 5
approaches to similar subjects, or focus on different The Critic Speaks: Lucy Lippard
subjects entirely. The essence here is that these simi¬
"I'd be the first to concede that I haven't been a
larities and differences are viewed on the basis of
proper art critic for some time now. I've never liked
social and cultural factors, not as simply arising from
the antagonistic implications of the title anyway. A
the different genders of the artists.
painter friend asked me recently if the role art plays
After choosing diverse examples of women
as an agent of consciousness and change is more
artists, reflect as to whether these examples give a
important to me than the other roles it plays, and I
broad view of choices of themes, media, and styles
had to answer yes. I respect those 'other roles' but
over the widest range of types of visual expression.
I have become less interested in writing about the
For example: Show work by women that takes two
object or exhibition per se and more interested in
different views of a similar subject. Go out of your
the contradictory, mysterious ways in which artists
way to show examples that reveal the range of
and objects or actions enter society, in what images
women's artistic expression. In another instance,
mean and do to people, and how contact or lack of
show work by the Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt
contact with people in turn affects what artists do.
that does not illustrate the mother and child
So when I write about a single artist, I try to weave
theme.
her or his work into the general cultural/political

fabric in order to avoid further isolation. For similar

Highlight Gender Through the Lenses
reasons, I mix up high, low, and popular cultures:
of Art Criticism and Art History
and when I put together a show or a series of arti¬
In addition to making female artists an integral part
cles, I try to incorporate as a matter of course a
of the K-12 curriculum, in what other ways can we
diversity of race, gender, age, and geography as
bring women's voices and perspectives into class¬
well as style and form."
rooms? Chapter 3 introduced the idea that women
Source: Lucy Lippard, The Pink Glass Swan: Selected
have always had a range of roles in relation to art:
Feminist Essays on Art (New York: New Press, 1995),
artist, subject, patron, viewer, critic, student or
205.
apprentice, historian, and others. Consider how
to bring some sense of the range of women's This view of art criticism by female art critic Lucy

artistic contributions and roles to students. Try Lippard demonstrates an approach to gender equity

these ideas: in art based on social action.

Introduce Ideas Found in Feminist Art Criticism

It is important that students become aware not
only of examples of women artists, but also the
presence of women's voices in art criticism.
Students can realize that factors that affect our
personal identity—gender, ethnicity, age, and
class among others, can have an impact on our
critical perspective, thus shaping how critics or

Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity

65
 The Artist-Critic Speaks
Artist Carrie Rickey's thoughts on seeing the Dinner
Party:
"It's a glossary of the so-called 'lesser arts'—tatting,
lace, weaving, making ceramic household vessels,
embroidering—that women have been confined to
for thousands of years. But that all these crafts are
brought together, synthesized for a ritual (and it's
the men who usually make the ritual art in pre¬
literate cultures) is just one of the canny reversals
that the Dinner Party undertakes. It proposes that
the sum of the lesser arts is great art."
Source: Carrie Rickey, quoted in Edward Lucie-Smith,
Race, Sex and Gender in Contemporary Art (London:
Art Books International, 1994), 152.
5.4 Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979, 576 x 576 x 576" (1463
x 1463 x 1463 cm). Multimedia installation. Courtesy of the artist.
66
students respond to works of art. Provide exam¬
ples of how male and female critics reacted simi¬
larly or differently to specific works of art. Discuss
what factors might account for their reactions.
For example, look at critical reviews of the exhibi¬
tion of the Dinner Party by Judy Chicago.6 One
female art critic suggested that this was one of
the most important works of its time. In contrast,
another female critic interpreted the work to be
"the ultimate in 70s kitsch," meaning it was
trendy but had no lasting value, and was not
worth the viewer's time. A number of prominent
male critics agreed.7 Students could take opposing
stances about the work and explore the issue ver¬
bally, in writing, or in a visually artistic response
or performance, with the idea that girls would
have equal voice, but not necessarily just that of
the female critic.
Inform Students about Influential Female
Art Historians
Introduce students to the work of a woman art histo¬
rian, such as Linda Nochlin, one of the founders of
feminist art history. Share her penetrating insights
with students, sending the implicit message that
women's views of art history should be taken
seriously.
Explore Issues of Context
That Shape Content
Social factors are often far more important than
innate biological factors in explaining differences
between men and women, girls and boys. Teachers
often bring in an artist's biography when teaching
students about that artist's work. However, try
extending the discussion beyond the individual's life
to consider the social contexts in which he or she
lived and worked. By including such factors that
Chapter 5
transcend the individual, students gain a better
understanding of art. They are better able to see
how content in the art classroom connects to what
they are learning in other areas of the curriculum.
This is true interdisciplinary learning. Here are some
more ideas to try:

Pose Challenging Questions

As previously suggested, although discretion is
important, many works that provide the richest
possibilities for exploration of gender issues can
be provocative. Nudes are an obvious example.
Since nudes through much of the history of art
are predominantly female, and the body is such
an emotionally weighted subject, discussion of
the nude brings out many gender-related
issues.
Study the Social Roles of Women Artists
Include art imagery in lessons that will spark discus¬
sion about gender roles in society. The selection
might include the work of artists such as Magdalena
Abakanowicz, Hannah Hoch, Elizabeth Catlett,
Barbara Kruger, Miriam Schapiro, Sonia Terk-
Delaunay, Mary Cassatt, Alice Neel, or Maria
Martinez. Gender-related roles or images are a
focus of the work of these artists. By bringing them
into the curriculum, teachers include an array of
artists who speak in a conscious way about women
in society. This will provide a far richer exploration
for students than arbitrarily including a few women
artists as examples in art classes.
Create Multiple Connections
Use art content as a vehicle for teaching ethnic
diversity, higher-order thinking, and gender equity.
Art lessons provide wonderful opportunities for
teaching students about uniqueness and universality,
5.5 Berenice Abbott (American,
1898-1991), Edna St. Vincent Millay,
ca. 1927. Vintage silver print, 3 1/2 x 4"
(9x11 cm). The National Museum of
Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.
Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay.
similarity and difference, power and weakness,
centrality and marginality, and art lessons offer
multiple solutions for compelling questions. When
teachers make a decision to trivialize or ignore
gender-inclusive opportunities for art instruction,
they make a decision to not deal with gender issues
that readily emerge in the serious study of art—a
perfect example of the null or evaded curriculum at
work.
Rethink Curriculum Approaches
Explore important issues or themes in the art
curriculum with "an eye on gender." The question
of approach to content selection is a fundamental
one for both elementary classroom teachers
and K-12 art specialists. Perspectives on art
content that focus solely on elements and

Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity 67

 principles, manipulation of media, or spontaneous
personal expression provide few opportunities
for exploring gender issues in a substantive way.
In comparison, a comprehensive approach to art
programming which involves making art, studying
the many diverse forms of visual expression in
their historical and cultural contexts, critically
examining them, and encouraging the explo¬
ration of fundamental questions about art pro¬
vides multiple opportunities to deal with gender
issues from a variety of perspectives. Such an
approach will also allow teachers to connect
these issues in the art classroom to larger issues
in other areas of the curriculum, in society and in
students' lives.8
Identify Appropriate Content
A school's curriculum, our personal and professional
views about the role of art in education and in the
world, and whether one is an elementary classroom
teacher or an art specialist are all factors that also
affect decisions teachers make about what teaching
content they will include.
Elementary classroom teachers make decisions
about how much emphasis is given to art in relation
to other subjects in the core curriculum. Will art be
introduced in an interdisciplinary way—as a rich
opportunity for illustrating big ideas in curriculum
areas, such as social studies, humanities, or history?
Or will art be given time in the day as a subject unto
itself, related to other areas, but significant for our
students in its own right? Issues of gender can be
brought out in either of these contexts. Some ideas
for the elementary classroom teacher to think about
include:
Making critical choices about what big ideas in
art that relate to life are important for younger chil¬
dren to learn.
68
Understanding the relationship of big ideas in
and about art to similar thematic content in math,
humanities, or science.
Finding imagery for students to explore during
the lesson's activities that^an connect art to those
other areas of the curriculum, as well as support our
efforts at gender-equitable education. These can
include works of art or other images from the
broader realm of visual culture.
Choices for K-12 art specialists might take a
slightly different approach. Their curriculum respon¬
sibilities often include the development of art
lessons that are taught to several groups of students
per day and may or may not relate to ongoing cur¬
riculum content in students' regular classrooms.
These art teachers might indeed be responsible for
developing the same lesson for six to nine classes
daily. It is a challenge to imbed gender equity issues
into those lessons with examples of art created by
women that brightly illuminate the big idea in the
lesson, and by introducing women artists' ideas and
perspectives for discussion as readily as inclusion of
male artists.
For example, art specialists could introduce the
idea of power and how it works in culture. Humans
concern themselves with ways to gain power over
others, retain it, or they become resigned to never
having any power. Perhaps the thematic statement
overarching the curriculum content might read "All
people seek to find a place for themselves in the
world in terms of their knowledge and acceptance of
self, their role in family and community, and their
opportunities for moving into new or different cir¬
cles of power."
Design Substantive Content
As suggested earlier, basing art lessons on
universal themes and experiences that occur
Chapter 5
 Artists and Gender The Artist (Rosa Bonheur) speaks:

Try This: Point out that Rosa Bonheur, the nine¬ "In the way of males, I like only the bulls I paint."

teenth-century French painter renowned for pictures

"She's right to prefer art to marriage, which more
of horses and other animals, wanted to wear
often than not takes a woman in."
trousers so that she could visit the stockyards and
"I have to endure the trying on of a dress with a
slaughterhouses where she studied the animals she
train, and to be alert lest I am surprised in trousers
liked to paint. Amazingly, however, this was consid¬
and blouse. ... I indulge in serious meditations on
ered so "unlady-like" that she had to get a police
liberty. ... So you can imagine ... how fine I must
permit to wear pants. Although she was extremely
be in harness."
successful, she was also criticized for painting sub¬

jects not appropriate for a woman. A discussion Source: Rosa Bonheur, quoted in James Saslow,

about Rosa Bonheur can lead to a rich examination "Disagreeably Hidden: Construction and Constriction

of gender roles and expectations then and now. Ask of the Lesbian Body in Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair,"

students whether there are still professions or activ¬ Norma Broude and Mary Garrard, eds.. The

ities that are not appropriate for one gender or the Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History,

other. Explore the reasons for their answers. Refer 99-100.

again to Rosa Bonheur to help students understand

that'dgid expectations about gender roles place

it

unfair barriers on people, limiting what they can

achieve.

5.6 Rosa Bonheur (French, 1822-1899),

Sheep by the Sea, 1865. Oil on cradled
panel, 12 3/4 x 18" (32 x 46 cm). The
National Museum of Women in the Arts,
Washington, DC. Gift of Wallace and
Wilhelmina Holladay.

Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity

69
 Try This across time and cultures expands opportunities
for weaving in issues of gender, class, and ethnic¬
Think of examples of art or visual culture
ity in more integral ways. Boyer describes a series
which relate to each of Boyer's big ideas.
of thematic issues that teachers can use as start¬
Several examples fill the pages of this
ing points:9
book. Can you think of some other
The Life Cycle: All humans share the universal
images? How would your examples dif¬
experience of birth, growth, and death.
fer if they have been selected from
Symbol: All people use symbols and rituals to
examples over time and across genders
express feelings and ideas.
and cultures?
Aesthetic Response: All people respond to the
aesthetic.
Time and Place: All people have the miraculous
capacity to recall the past and to anticipate the
future.
Social Bonding: All people are members of groups
and institutions that consequently shape their lives.
The Natural World: While each human being is
unique, each one is connected to the ecology of
planet Earth. All people are embedded in nature as
working parts.
Work: All people produce and consume. Work is
universal. ... It is not enough to only be a taker.
Humans must also learn to give back.
Search for a Larger Purpose: There is in all people
an attempt to give meaning and a spiritual direction
to their lives.
Further, basing lessons on big ideas or themes
opens up possibilities for content that would not
exist otherwise. Chapter 7 presents four sample
lessons that address several of Boyer's themes:
exploring human roles in architecture, providing
gender-sensitive historical documentation through
portraiture, understanding the power of human
protest against oppression in art, and analyzing
humans' ability to understand the female form as a
universal aesthetic.

70 Chapter 5
Consider Gender Within the Context The Artist Speaks
of Multiculturalism
"I’m feeling extremely colored now days, and I'm
In actuality, we cannot separate gender issues
happy about my 'conditions.' For much too long,
from the larger issues of diversity, and we do
I've placed great emphasis on being European and
so in this book only as a means of initiating
Western. Often at the expense of overlooking the
discussion and creating awareness about the
value of African-American culture."
role and effect of gender in art and art
education. Source: Carrie Mae Weems, quoted in Lucy Lippard,

More than a decade ago, Wasson, Stuhr, and Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural World,

(New York: Pantheon, 1990), 38.

Petrovich-Mwaniki made a powerful position state¬
ment about how teachers can support individuals
in their art classrooms in terms of all issues of
diversity, such as class, gender, ethnicity, or religious
belief.10 They challenged teachers to: become famil¬
iar with the sociocultural contexts surrounding indi¬
vidual artists highlighted in instruction; be willing
to confront personal sociocultural biases as curricu¬
lum decisions are made; draw upon the cultural
value systems of individual students as bases for
aesthetic and artistic instruction; seek out and use
strategies for "culturally responsive pedagogy"
relative to factors of diversity in classrooms; and
ensure that each student is exposed to art and
cultural alternatives inclusive of, but not limited
to, their own diverse combination of sociocultural
factors.
Over the past two decades, increasing
attention has been paid to the need to address
issues of cultural diversity in classrooms and
in instruction. Multiculturalism has been con¬
strued in a variety of ways, and addressing
these issues takes many forms.11 Despite these
variations, however, certain key issues apply
5.7 Lola Alvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1907-1993), De
when teachers consider how to infuse issues Generacion en Generacion, ca. 1950. Gelatin silver
of gender as well as issues of culture into print, 9x6 1/8" (23 x 15 cm). The National Museum of
classroom contexts. Women In the Arts, Washington, DC. Gift of the Artist.

Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity 71

 Increase Our Understanding of Multiculturalism
The art classroom provides an excellent opportunity
for the introduction and exploration of critical life
issues as well as critical art issues. As with other cate¬
gories of diversity—race, class, or sexual orientation,
for example—teachers' consideration of issues
related to gender is critical to the integrity of art
education. Because issues of gender do not exist sep¬
arately from other issues of diversity in our class¬
rooms, consider gender issues as an integral part of
this "big picture" of multiculturalism. Ultimately, an
important goal in the art classroom should be to
provide relevant content for each student to recog¬
nize his or her own voice, drawing on all the charac¬
teristics that contribute to each person's unique
perspective. At the same time, students may realize
that each of these unique "voices" can contribute to
an overall understanding of the human experience.
Include Key Multicultural Concepts
in Art Lesson Content
Design lessons to help students understand that no
single gender, ethnic heritage, or political group has
a monopoly on who defines "culture" or the art that
people create within that culture. Since teachers
know that all groups contribute to society with art
or other means of individual expression, education
that is exclusive, rather than inclusive, is inherently
distorted and unfair to all students.
Help students understand, in terms of gender and
culture, similarities and differences in artworks cre¬
ated by people with differing backgrounds without
judging those products created by one group as
superior to another's. This does not mean that stu¬
dents dismiss the concept of standards. It means that
they learn that standards, norms, and ratings of
value are contingent on who has the power to cre¬
72
ate those standards that determine what is consid¬
ered significant.
Ensure that students understand how differences
*
among groups are primarily cultural, rather than
biologically ordained. Neither all Asian-Americans,
to cite one example, nor urban teenage girls, to
offer another, necessarily look at the world or
express themselves in a universal or unified way.
Help students become aware of the significant dif¬
ference between representing one's own perspec¬
tive from inside a gendered or cultural group, and
having someone from "outside" that group
attempt to provide that authentic perspective.
Negative stereotypes created by one ethnic group,
or by one gender over another, are extreme exam¬
ples of this situation.
Study Stereotypes and Archetypes
Chapter 4 explores how both art and popular
images, with which students are constantly bom¬
barded, are filled with stereotypes related to the
ideal man or woman, called archetypes. Without crit¬
ical examination, these issues are simply reinforced.
Since these stereotypes and archetypes limit stu¬
dents' ideas about what is appropriate for individu¬
als of their gender, they are quite destructive. On the
other hand, since a primary goal of art instruction is
to help students create and understand the visual
with increasing knowledge and sophistication, incor¬
poration of gender issues is a key element into what
is sometimes called "visual literacy." Being able to
recognize and respond to visual form and content in
both art and popular culture allows children to make
more authentic meaning of their worlds. This ability
does not occur in the same way in either their under¬
standing of expression or in their ability to communi¬
cate through text, music, or theater.
Chapter 5
Apply the Lens of Gender
The Language of Art
Look at popular images or advertisements through
". . . children rely on the visual channel
what might be called the "lens of gender." For
to think beyond the word to that of col¬
example, choose a popular magazine and select a
ors, shapes, lines, movement, balance,
cosmetics ad, which has been created very carefully
and textures. To see an idea stretches
and at great expense, to convey a certain link
children's imagination and stimulates
between a person and a product. Have students
new ways of knowing and responding
analyze the ad for its obvious message. Then ask
to the world. ... As an aesthetic choice
what the ad says about being male or femaie.
that children make, the visual channel
Challenge students to look even more deeply into
complements linguistic thinking and pro¬
the image and text for other subtle or possibly
vides a flexible option for creating and
destructive messages.
presenting ideas."
Extend this form of analysis to postmodern works
of art and visual media. For purposes of illustration, Source: Carolyn Piazza, "Art Literacy:

focus on the work of the Guerrilla Girls and show Visualizing Language," Multiple Forms of

how this collective of contemporary American artists Literacy: Teaching Literacy and the Arts

has turned the power of ads or performance to their (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall,

1999), 11-60. Quote from pp. 13-14.

own advantage in their skillful, creative protest of
gender inequality.12

Draw on Content from Students' Own Lives

Art specialists might find that students resist their
efforts to feature art content that connects to
goals of developing visual literacy, artistic under¬
standing, or social awareness. Teachers may feel
pressed to emphasize art-making performance or
technical competence as the basis for art curricu¬
lum content. Structure content so that students'
encounters with art will help them sort out adoles¬
cent roles and voices in their own social settings.
However, be aware that providing imagery as a
vehicle for frank discussion about personal, social,
and cultural issues is not always an easy task. Since
an adolescent student experiences strong peer
pressure, he or she may find it difficult to speak
out as an individual without strong support in a
classroom context.

Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity 73

 In an age when students are literally bombarded
with images that are often intended to influence
and manipulate them, one of the most important
benefits of quality art instruction is to provide them
with tools for critically analyzing those images. The
best place for this to occur is in the art classroom.
Students can then bring this heightened awareness
to their own art-making.

74 Chapter 5
Notes
1 Christine de Pisan, Cite des Dames, Venice, 1405. Christine
de Pisan was the first professional woman writer in
Europe. On Pisan, see Susan Bell, "Christine de Pizan
(1364-1430): Humanism and the Problem of the Studious
Woman," Feminist Studies (vol. 1, nos. 3-4, 1976),
173-184.
2 Frances Thurber, "A Study of Women Artists in the K-12
Art Curriculum in the United States." Survey conducted as
part of a research grant from the National Art Education
Association Foundation, 1999. Presented at NAEA
National Conference, New York, 2000.
3 Abby Remer, Pioneering Spirits: The Lives and Times of
Remarkable Women Artists in Western History (Worcester,
MA: Davis Publications, Inc., 1997).
4 Ed Check and Laura Lampela, "Teaching More of the
Story: Sexual and Cultural Diversity in Art and the
Classroom," NAEA Advisory (Summer 1999), 1-2.
5 For both historical and contemporary discussions of
homosexuality in art, see James Saslow, "Disagreeably
Hidden: Construction and Constriction of the Lesbian
Body in Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair," Norma Broude and
Mary Garrard, eds., The Expanding Discourse, Feminism
and Art History. See also James Saslow, Pictures and
Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts
(New York: Penguin, 2001).
6 On critical reactions to Chicago's Dinner Party, see Amelia
Jones, ed., Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in
Feminist Art History (Los Angeles: UCLA, 1997).
7 Ibid., 88.
8 The authors believe that a comprehensive or discipline-
based approach lends itself well to the substantive explo¬
ration of gender issues in the art classroom. For a useful
summary of this approach, see Stephen Mark Dobbs,
Learning in and Through Art: A Guide to Discipline-Based
Art Education (Los Angeles: Getty Center for Education in
the Arts, 1998).
9 Ernest L. Boyer, "Educating in a Multicultural World,"
Access, 112, Summer 1992. For additional suggestions for
using thematic approaches and substantive concepts in
curriculum design, see Sydney R. Walker, Teaching
Transforming Curriculum to Foster Gender Equity
Meaning in Artmaking (Worcester, MA: Davis Publi¬
cations, Inc., 2001) and Marilyn Stewart and Sydney
Walker, Rethinking Curriculum in Art (Worcester, MA:
Davis Publications, Inc., 2005).
10 Robyn F. Wasson, Patricia L. Stuhr, and Lois Petrovich-
Mwaniki, "Teaching Art in the Multicultural Classroom:
Six Position Statements," Studies in Art Education 31,
no. 4, 1990, 234-246. Quote is from p. 235.
11 Articles such as F. Graeme Chalmer's theoretical stance
in "Culturally Based Versus Universally Based Under¬
standing of Art," in Doug Blandy and Kristin Congdon,
eds., Art in a Democracy (New York: Teachers College
Press, 1987), 4-12; and Rikki Asher's personal narrative
and research in "The Sojourner Truth Mural:
Investigating African American History Through Public
Art,"' in Elizabeth J. Sacca and Enid Zimmerman, eds.,
Women Art Educators IV: Herstories, Ourstories, Future
Stories (Boucherville, Quebec: Canadian Society for
Education Through Art, 1998), 16-24; among many
others, provide readers with an abundance of ideas for
creating compelling art curricula that is not only gender
sensitive, but culturally authentic. Two useful recently
published anthologies are: Robert J. Saunders, ed.,
Beyond the Traditional: Facing a Pluralistic Society
(Reston, VA: National Art Education Association, 1998)
and Mary Erickson and Bernard Young, eds.,
Multicultural Artworlds: Enduring, Evolving and
Overlapping Traditions (Reston, VA: National Art
Education Association, 2002).
12 Terry Barrett, Talking about Student Art (Worcester, MA:
Davis Publications, Inc., 1998) is another valuable source
of information for methods of dealing with controver¬
sial or sensitive subjects in the art classroom. For further
discussion of postmodern approaches to art education,
see James Hutchens and Marianne Suggs, eds., Art
Education: Content and Practice in a Postmodern Era
(Reston, VA: National Art Education Association, 1998)
and Yvonne Gaudelius and Pat Steirs, eds.. Contem¬
porary Issues in Art Education (Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 2002).
75
Chapter
Supporting a Gender-Equitable Climate
in the Art Classroom

Creating effective learning climates for girls and boys in art classrooms

involves a complex interaction of successful teacher behaviors, student

behaviors, environmental factors, as well as the availability of appropriate

learning activities for students. To ensure gender equity in the art classroom,

it is important that teachers address the aforementioned issues of pedagogy

as well as art content. After discussing theoretical and ethical bases for

gender equity in classrooms, the real-world question becomes: What

attainable and concrete teaching strategies will allow teachers to create

a gender-equitable art classroom?

"Since Biblical times, attitudes toward
women, 'women's work,' and their value
have not changed appreciably. Not only is
'women's work' devalued, but if women
gain predominance in a traditionally male
domain, it loses prestige.... Further, it is
not only 'women's work' that has been
and is still devalued today, but female
persons have historically been and con¬
tinue to be less valued than males in
many cultures."
Source: Theresa Mickey McCormick,
Creating the Non-Sexist Classroom
(New York: Teachers College Press,
Columbia University, 1994), 35-36.
The suggestions listed below are ways to focus or to
re-evaluate attention toward teaching and modeling
gender equity in classrooms. By confronting personal
biases or lack of preparation about gender issues,
teachers can develop a keen awareness of the
dynamics of gender issues in teaching environments.
Many other effective strategies will naturally emerge
in daily practice as well.
From the inequities reported in the sidebar on
the next page, it is clear that how teachers conduct
themselves, and how they facilitate the behavior of
their students has a deep sociological impact on the
quality of the educational experience for all of their
students. Teachers can focus on their own skills and
behaviors, on the skills and behaviors of their stu¬
dents, on the "feel" or atmosphere of the learning
environment, and on the structure of activities
designed and assessed within the classroom environ¬
ment to promote gender equity in learning. What
can be most readily controlled or transformed in
your own actions?
Teaching Behaviors That Enhance
Gender Equity
With the emphasis on individual expression in art
classrooms, teachers are provided with an outstand¬
ing opportunity for validating and listening to the
voices of girls, as well as those of boys. Reflect on
how you respond to female and male students'
work. Are both accepted with equal seriousness and
equal degrees of attentiveness? Are students helped
to overcome difficulties by being provided with the
same degree of focus and attention? For example, a
common practice exists among teachers of finishing
tasks or artworks for girls, while allowing boys to fig¬
ure out procedures for themselves. Consider the
emotional harm inflicted on boys when they are not
offered the same emotional nurture shown toward
girls, perhaps during a stressful classroom interac¬
tion. How can teachers avoid allowing girls and boys
to fall into rigid gender-defined roles in their class¬
rooms?
How teachers teach is a critical component of
effective classroom change. The work of the Sadkers,
and Collins and Sandell's book Women, Art, and
Education offer an extensive list of strategies teach¬
ers can implement to provide gender equity in art
instruction.1 Further research from the ERIC data¬
base, at the online Eisenhower National Clearing
House Web site, from AAUW reports, as well as from
other sources, supports Sadkers', Collins's, and
Sandell's recommendations. Many additional behav¬
iors, skills, attitudes, and strategies are suggested in
the resources above for inclusion in teaching reper¬
toires (see Chapter 9 for information about these
resources). The authors suggest that the most impor¬
tant dispositions, habits, or teaching skills found in
these various sets of recommendations and in their
own experience include the following actions:
ln 1992, the AAUW Report How Schools
Shortchange Girls listed a series of serious
inequities in the nation's classrooms.2 Its authors
found that:
• Girls received less teacher attention than boys
did.
• Girls received less challenging, complex interac¬
tion with teachers than boys.
• Girls received less constructive feedback from
teachers than boys did.
• Girls' responses received less wait time than
boys'.
• Gender bias in teacher-student interaction varied
across subject areas, with math and science
classes showing the largest inequities.
In 1998, the AAUW released a follow-up report.
Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children,
indicating that although advances had been made

in reducing some of these inequalities, many of

General Teacher Behaviors these issues were still of concern. They also recom¬
Promote Social and Interpersonal Awareness Con¬ mended that preservice teacher education include
tinue to expand and challenge personal awareness more comprehensive equity training.
and comfort zones regarding complex human rights
issues including sexism, heterosexism, ageism, racism,
and classism.

Consider Your Language Choices Use gender-

balanced, bias-free, or nonsexist language in teach¬
ing or during informal interactions with students.
The very language used in the classroom is often
biased, and suggests the male as the norm. Notice
whether talk about "women artists" occurs but not
about "man artists." The issue of an artist's personal
characteristics, whether talking about gender, ethnic¬
ity, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteris-

Supporting a Gender-Equitable Climate in the Art Classroom

79
 Words Matter
Try This: Consider the following two approaches to
conveying information about an artist:
a. "Mary Cassatt was the leading female
Impressionist. Her favorite subjects were mothers
and children."
b. "Mary Cassatt was a leading member of the
Impressionist movement. She focused her work on
domestic subjects from her everyday experience. As
a woman, she did not have the mobility of her male
counterparts, who frequented cafes, bars, and race¬
courses, and whose work focused on public plea¬
sures in the city. This difference in social mobility
may partially explain the different aspects of con¬
temporary life that we see in Cassatt's work and
that of her male contemporaries."
The first statement is typical of what many teachers
find in sources about artists who are women. The
second avoids stereotyping or reducing the status
of the woman artist and suggests a contextual
explanation for perceived gender differences.
80
tics, can readily be brought in if relevant to the dis¬
cussion and goals of the lesson.
*
Model Equitable Leadership Model leadership roles
based on feminist principles of mentoring, collabora¬
tion, and efforts at personal empowerment. This
might mean taking extra care when setting up collab¬
orative learning groups, allowing students to actively
participate in their own assessment of performance,
or making sure that they recognize themselves in both
exemplary imagery and discussions during the learn¬
ing activities. If students see both female and male
teachers behaving as team leaders and collaborators
in learning, rather than as authorities or as a "one-
person show," they are able to envision a comfort¬
able, less risky space for themselves. Students can
begin to develop their own expertise in situations call¬
ing for them to show leadership in the classroom.
Encourage Student Leadership Provide opportunities
for student leadership roles in the art classroom
based on those same feminist principles of mentor¬
ing, collaboration, and empowerment. Do the boys
get to do the physical work (lifting, emptying trash,
etc.), and the girls get to do the "thinking" work
(counting pencils, washing and sorting brushes, etc.)
in your classroom? Who gets called on to answer
content questions about the art in your lessons?
Devise a strategy for yourself to make sure that both
boys and girls have a chance to respond—perhaps by
calling on one then another in rotation.
Model Sensitivity and Discourage Discrimination
Model sensitivity by equitably promoting values for
male and female students. Values of cooperation, shar¬
ing, and respect for others who appear to be different
are integral to a state of gender equity in classes. Let
students know up front and consistently that intoler-
Chapter 6
ance, harassment, name-calling, stereotyping, or any
other form of discrimination based on gender, sexual
orientation, ethnicity, physical condition, or any other
variable for diversity in your classroom will not be tol¬
erated. Decide on what consequences will result from
such student behavior and follow through with conse¬
quences when appropriate.
Focus on the Individual Students Consistently con¬
sider the needs and abilities of each individual stu¬
dent, rather than always focusing on large-group
dynamics. For example, be conscious of providing
opportunities for reflective thinking in individual
assignments for students—reinforcing the talents of
the introverted students in the art classroom. Provide
time for sustained reflective thought as in required
journal entries where students can be further
rewarded for introverted as well as extroverted
learning styles. Also be sensitive to the amount of
time each student might require to successfully com¬
plete various aspects of the assignment.
Promote Equitable Discussion Structure discussions
by forming very small cooperative groups with both
genders, and allow for sufficient "wait time" after
posing a question so that quieter students, who are
often female, get to contribute. Use further care in
forming groups so group membership is based on a
balance of learning styles, rather than on popularity
or peer selection alone.
Communicate Standards and Expectations Develop
assessment tools such as performance portfolios that
reflect a gender-equitable stance for the more com¬
mon learning styles of both female and male stu¬
dents. During the assessment process, maintain
equally high standards for all students regardless of
gender, ethnic origin, or social class. Communicate
Supporting a Gender-Equitable Climate in the Art Classroom
these standards and expectations consistently and
frequently. Understand and avoid differences in
language that are used to praise, criticize, or
remediate individual students. This use of different
language, particularly related to the gender of
the student, is one of the most important factors
embedded in the "hidden curriculum" and can be
nipped at its roots.
Teacher Behaviors Specific to an Art Classroom
From the consideration of general classroom prac¬
tice, consider what other specific pedagogical strate¬
gies might improve the climate for girls and boys in
art instruction. Some recommendations include
being willing to:
Choose Resources Carefully Acquire knowledge
about the content, quality, and location of existing
art resource materials promoting equity. In a recent
survey teachers indicated that their biggest obstacle
in transforming their art curriculum into one that is
more gender inclusive was finding high-quality
resources to use in their teaching.3 Many of those
interviewed suggested that such materials for art
teachers were not easily located, nor were they a
high priority for purchase in their school districts.
Give Equal Opportunities for Leadership Present art
career options that include nontraditional roles for
both female and male students. As our world evolves
technologically, students will need even more skills
in coping with the demands of the "information
society." Art and technology are closely linked in
terms of innovative career possibilities. Make certain
girls as well as boys are given opportunities for
learning and leadership in art-related technology
education. It would be a tragedy, just when girls are
making some measurable strides forward in math,
81
 science, and engineering education, if technology
became the new "boy's club."
Provide a Wide Selection of Art Present, discuss,
and evaluate imagery in a gender-balanced, unbi¬
ased, or nonsexist way by providing a number of
alternatives for students to view in terms of artist
selection, art styles, subject matter, and aesthetic
approaches.4
Challenge Students to Solve Visual Problems
Design effective and meaningful studio activities
based on students' previous exploration of gender-
balanced, unbiased, or nonsexist imagery. Having
students copy the style of a woman artist will not
give them the insights they need from studying that
artist. Instead, if students are motivated to interpret
ideas and concepts explored by that artist, they can
create their own art at a much more authentic level,
and it will not simply be a stylistic re-creation of
work by the woman artist.
Confront Sensitive Subjects Develop techniques
with which you are comfortable for dealing with
controversial or sensitive subjects such as nudity in
art, the use of the human body as an object or vic¬
tim of the "gaze" in the history of art, or criteria for
determining art vs. pornography.5 Depending upon
the school setting, some of these issues may appear
to be impossible to discuss; however, those impor¬
tant issues teachers choose not to confront in their
classrooms will surface and have an impact on stu¬
dents and in society elsewhere.
Address Gender Stereotypes Design creative strate¬
gies for confronting gender stereotypes in mass media
and other popular imagery. These may include journal¬
ing, group discussion, or art-making activities.
82
Facilitate Study of Women Artists Be prepared with
background information about featured examples
and artists. "Anonymous" as the identification for a
woman artist has been around long enough. In addi¬
tion to taking time to conduct research about
women artists, be able to spell and to pronounce
artists' names correctly.
Encourage Student Behaviors
That Positively Affect Gender Equity
Student actions and interactions in classrooms have a
strong bearing on those classrooms being an equi¬
table learning environment for all students. In the
following section, certain student behaviors are
listed so teachers can both encourage and reward
students for contributing to an equitable learning
space.
In addition to some teacher-student interactions
and student-student interactions, other aspects of
the classroom culture, such as the ever-present "hid¬
den," "evaded," and "null" curricula that we dis¬
cussed in Chapter 1, can also be disadvantageous to
girls. For example, Peggy Orenstein has documented
that it is socially acceptable in many places for boys
to ridicule girls and their ideas, particularly in math
and science.6 Is it possible that such practices carry
over to art classrooms? The following ideas may help
students become agents of change in terms of pro¬
viding opportunities for gender equity for their
peers, and later, in learning to live as successful, fair,
and nurturing adults in an increasingly technocratic
modern society:
General Student Behaviors
Expect Students to Practice Tolerance If some stu¬
dents show more natural art-making skill than oth¬
ers, reward their helping behaviors toward those
with less ability. Encourage open discussion with
Chapter 6
students about gender or other diversity issues that
surface in lessons. Students must know that we will
expect them to not put down or silence others or
call other students by names such as "fatso" or
"faggot." Students can show respect for the content
and style of art created by themselves or their peers
and for interpretations made in class about another
person's art.
Promote Sharing and Collaboration Help students
to find satisfaction in roles involving sharing or col¬
laborating rather than attempting to dominate or
compete. These behaviors will not occur naturally
without teaching interventions and a nurturing
classroom environment. Peer group pressure and
the pervasive presence of "other" in contemporary
society leave many students needing their teachers
as allies because of individual gender, physical status,
ethnicity, economic/social class, or religious belief.
Student Behavior Specific to Art Classrooms
Any student behavior that inhibits or trivializes the
ideas or perspective of any other student, whether
based on gender or some other factor, seriously
undermines any teacher's efforts to create an equi¬
table classroom atmosphere. The art classroom, with
its focus on individual expression, can make individu¬
als particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of
such behaviors. Effective teachers must find ways of
inhibiting negative behavior, while creating an
atmosphere in which respect for diverse views is the
norm. A teacher's example is one of the most impor¬
tant elements in creating such an atmosphere.
Establishing basic ground rules for promoting the
free exchange of ideas is also critical. The following
strategies specific to art instruction may help to
target effective behaviors for students relative to
gender issues.
Supporting a Gender-Equitable Climate in the Art Classroom
In early elementary school art lessons, challenge
students to think, talk, or write about their own
(cultural, artistic, creative) experiences and share
them with classmates through visual imagery, poetry,
or performance. Other students in class, as well as
the teacher, can reward and support each other's
creative efforts.
Encourage and reward upper-elementary and
middle school lessons, and students' collaborative
behaviors such as mural projects, writing a document
about the school's heritage or history, or creating an
environmental and/or public sculpture for the school
or the community.
In high school lessons, challenge students to gain,
from a variety of historical or class perspectives,
insight through both individual research on, and
reflective interpretation of, a variety of male and
female artists and artists of color. Students involved
in making choices about the display and celebration
throughout the school of their art-making efforts
can gain valuable life experience in the area of social
gender equity.
Create a Nurturing Environment
How can teachers provide a safe and equitable envi¬
ronment for all students? Unfortunately, this envi¬
ronment cannot occur without teachers making a
conscious effort to foster it. All students, regardless
of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, physical
characteristics, mental abilities, or religious beliefs,
deserve our attention when we go about setting up
an educational context that nurtures their diverse
intellectual and social needs.
A Classroom Climate That Promotes Equity
Teacher expectations, attitudes, and behaviors that
promote equity affect student responses and con¬
tribute heavily to the learning atmosphere in art
83
 classrooms. Teachers who are aware of this dynamic
can make a real difference in the lives of female and
male students by planning ahead. For example:
Ensure that all displays of visual material and stu¬
dent artwork in the classroom reflect diversity with
regard to age, gender, race, and class. Actively
encourage school administrators, teaching peers,
staff, and other students in the school to learn more
about gender equity from these displays.
Confront nonverbal body language reflecting
overt or covert intolerance toward others when
opportunities arise.
Structure the seating and placement of classroom
furniture to enhance social interaction possibilities
for all students. Consciously arrange student seating
to intermingle popular students, males, females, and
others who might need assistance at being included
into a grouped setting. Remain consistent in this
practice.
Provide texts and other resources about art that
are openly concerned with and raise issues about
gender equity and diversity of cultural perspectives
in the art classroom.
A Classroom Climate in Which Student
Expectations, Attitudes, and Behaviors
Promote Equity
Students' interactions with their teachers and among
their peers can contribute to a healthy learning envi¬
ronment that is sensitive to gender equity. Some
suggestions to consider in helping students have a
positive experience in the art classroom include the
following:
Reinforce that your art classroom is a place where
student "mistakes," errors in judgment, or unsuc¬
cessful versions of an art-making assignment are
opportunities for growth rather than verifications of
a student's inadequacy.
84
Make students aware of what responsibilities
belong to the teacher and which ones belong
to the students. Make clear assertions about
student responsibilities for the physical space
of the classroom as well as for completion of
assignments.
Arrange for consistent group work in mixed-
gender groups that can allow students to work
in a less competitive atmosphere. This respite
from competition benefits many students, boys
as well as girls. Of course, it is essential to monitor
groups so that all participants get to contribute,
without any individual — male or female—domi¬
nating.
A Safe Classroom Climate
Creating a "safe zone" in art classrooms and schools
for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or question¬
ing students is a primary moral and legal responsibil¬
ity for teachers. Recommendations for establishing a
safe learning environment for boys and girls in the
art classroom include:7
Developing clear harassment policies to protect
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning stu¬
dents, and others against physical and verbal harass¬
ment, as well as being consistent in the enforcement
of such policies.
Incorporating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans¬
gender issues into the art curriculum when appropri¬
ate. If issues are never raised or if they, on the other
hand, are forced—neither is an equitable situation
for students.
Being available to students who may be experi¬
encing issues of gender orientation, and being
informed about other appropriate resource persons
in the school who can serve as allies for lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgendered, or questioning
youth.
Chapter 6
 Obviously, anything the teacher does to eliminate
the aspects of gender inequity discussed above will
help make a more gender-equitable environment in
the art classroom. It is not easy to recognize one's
own blinders, so we reiterate that the need to begin
with a critical analysis of personal bias, as well as
professional classroom practice, is essential.

Design Instructional Activities

That Specifically Address Issues
of Gender Equity
The following suggestions are examples of some of
the kinds of classroom activities that can promote
the examination of gender issues and a climate of
gender equity. Each addresses one or more of the
strategies or behaviors for promoting gender equity 6.7 Karen Borchers (American), Growing Up, Coming
Out, 7997. Gelatin silver print, 10 718 x 14" (28 x 36
discussed previously. Reflective activities, action exer¬
cm). The National Museum of Women in the Arts,
cises, and individual as well as collaborative research Washington, DC. Gift of the National Press
opportunities for students form the framework for Photographers Association Women's Committee.

this section of the chapter.

Reflective Exercises
Name the Artists: Give students five minutes to write
down the names of as many famous women artists
as they can. Discuss why most students could name
only one or two.

Choose an Artist-of-the Week: Alternate men and

women from diverse ethnic cultures.

Use Community Resources: If members of the art

community are routinely invited to address your
classes, include women artists, artists of color, or a
lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender artist to speak
about their art as part of the ongoing art program¬
ming. Provide opportunities for the students to
reflect on the ideas presented by the series of com¬
munity artist/speakers.

Supporting a Gender-Equitable Climate in the Art Classroom

85
 The Dinner Party Revisited: Have each student
choose one of the women represented in Judy
Chicago's installation, and create a personal tribute
to that individual. The tribute can be an artistic
piece in text, in an image, or in a performance and
may be kept in the students' reflective journals.
Mary Cassatt and Me: To reclaim the heritage of her
artistic foremothers, Miriam Schapiro did a series of
homages (she called them "femmages") to them.
Have each student research an important woman
artist and create a work of art that is a personal trib¬
ute. Do the same for a male artist.
Picasso's Sister: After studying the life of a famous
male artist, create an imaginary artistic biography
for the artist's sister. What would be different in the
two lives and careers? Hypothesize what factors
would account for those differences.
Recollections: Recall stereotypical images to which
both you and your students might have been
exposed since childhood. What assumptions did
these images help you make about gender stereo¬
types? Do you still harbor those assumptions? For
example, recall playing with Gl Joe or Barbie dolls.
What assumptions are inherent in these images for
children as well as their parents? What other arti¬
facts of visual culture in your students' lives are con¬
tributing to gender stereotyping?
Action Exercises
Becoming Agents of Change: Dissect a popular
newspaper or magazine for gender stereotypes.
Have students search the title, the style, and the
content of the text, the images, and the objects or
services being advertised for gender bias or stereo¬
typing. Have student groups "redesign" the publica¬
86
tion with the purpose of making it inclusive to other
cultural groups that they have identified. They can
use computer technology or traditional collage tech¬
niques as possible approaches to the redesign.
\
Designing an Honored Space: Arrange for students to
go to a local or regional art museum. Have a "treasure
hunt" for the women artists who are exhibited there.
How many exist in relation to male artists who are fea¬
tured? Based on the art and work of contemporary
artist Fred Wilson, known for his attempts at "mining
museums," pick one gallery in the museum and visual¬
ize (on paper) which women artists you might add to
the existing selection of artwork. Which works would
you remove? Which works would you redisplay in a
different area or in a different way? How would you
provide information for viewers about the works?
Role Play: Take a traditional theme that involves gen¬
der relations, such as Susanna and the Elders, or the
Judgment of Paris. Work in mixed groups of boys and
girls to create a contemporary version of it that com¬
ments on gender relations today. The outcome could
be either a visual product or a performance piece.
Appropriations: Ask students to modify a traditional
pattern of quilt, embroidery, applique, etc. to make
a statement about contemporary society. Display all
the individual student interpretations as a unit in a
prominent place in the school or community.
Role Reversals: Create a version of an artwork show¬
ing both men and women involved in various activi¬
ties in which the gender roles are reversed. For
example, Manet's Luncheon on the Grass with
clothed women and naked men or Mary Beth
Edeisen's painting of the Last Supper with some of
history's greatest women artists seated at the table.
Chapter 6
Deconstruct Stereotypes: Study artwork that uses
stereotypes to make its point, such as Bettye Saar's
Liberation of Aunt Jemima, or artwork by Robert
Colescott, Barbara Kruger, and Roger Shimomura.
Discuss how the artists take control of the stereotype
and change its meaning. Then have students work
with popular images from the mass media that are
based on gender stereotypes. Each student can cre¬
ate a collage that changes the meaning of the
image, from negative to positive.
Educate the Audience: Make arrangements for
a monthly or seasonal art opening or after-school
tea in the art classroom as a gender-equity learn¬
ing opportunity for school employees, students,
and their parents. Encourage students to take
responsibility for various aspects of the activity,
including decisions about equity in the displays
of art.
Individual Student Research
Where Are the Women? Take a popular artistic
style or movement, such as Impressionism, Cubism,
or Romanticism, and have students conduct individ¬
ual research on the women who were active artists
involved with these movements or styles. Have
each member within a group present something
interesting they learned about one of the
artists.
An Eye for the Future: Ask students to interview
both male and female career artists. Encourage them
to choose art careers that are considered nontradi-
tional for women such as architect, cinematogra¬
pher, computer animator, structural engineer, or
landscape designer. Challenge students to find and
interview women in the community who are
employed in those occupations.
Supporting a Gender-Equitable Climate in the Art Classroom
Taking Inventory: Have each student make a list of
artists who are exhibited in local stores or galleries,
on the walls and ground of school, at the local
library or bank, and in other public places in the
community. Do their lists reflect a balance of female
and male artists and artists of color?
Collaborative Research Opportunities
Read All about It: Collect media articles referring to
examples from current or past history about gender
equity or other compelling issues concerning art in
society. Have students read and comment on these
events. For example, an exhibit in New York was
cause for the city's mayor to threaten to withhold all
funding for the museum unless the exhibit was can¬
celed. One artwork in particular—of a female reli¬
gious figure—proved to be very offensive to several
religious groups. News of this exhibit was reported
in local and national publications. Students can dis¬
cuss issues on several levels: the "marketing" of art
as a commodity, religious beliefs and art, the role of
female icons, etc. Controversial cases about art
appear routinely in the daily papers and on the
news. They are an abundant source for student
exploration of real-life issues about art.
Group Investigation: Ask students to learn about a
set of specific artists. Each student works collabora-
tively with a small group researching one artist.
When groups are then restructured, each student
becomes an "expert" on that artist and reports her
or his knowledge to his or her second working
group.
Content Analysis: Small groups of students create a
list of words used to describe feminine qualities.
Students make another list of descriptive words
relating to masculinity. Make available a series of
87
 brief art criticism articles about male and female
artists for students. Have students examine the arti¬
cles. Do art critics choose the same sorts of adjectives
to describe the art of both male and female artists?

Image Analysis: Compare a variety of archetypal

images of males and females from the history of art
and from popular culture. Make a list of adjectives
relating to each of these sets of images. Which qual¬
ities are positive and which are negative? Discuss
how this dichotomy reflects gender attitudes.

Artists as Partners: Consider situations where two

artists were personally connected as well as artistic
collaborators. Some examples include Auguste Rodin
and Camille Claudel; Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred
Stieglitz; Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns; Lee
Krasner and Jackson Pollock; Frida Kahlo and Diego
Rivera; Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriel Munter; and
Robert Delaunay and Sonia Terk-Delaunay. Create
mixed pairs of boys and girls. Have each pair give a
report. When all pairs have reported, have the class
consider whether both members of an artistic part¬
nership were given equal attention. Consider
whether the relationship was more supportive or
competitive.

Clothes Make the Man (and the Woman): Look at a

variety of portraits from different periods and cul¬
tures. Discuss what the clothing, jewelry, and other
visual clues in the image say about gender roles and
the differences in the social situation of men and
women in that time and place.
6.2 Camille Claudel (French, 1864-1943), Young Girl with a
Sheaf, ca. 1890. Bronze, 14 1/8x7 112" (36 x 19 cm). The
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.
Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay, assembled by
Nancy Valentine. Purchased with funds donated by
Mr. and Mrs. Oliver R. Grace and family.

88 Chapter 6
Notes
1 Myra Pollack Sadker and David Miller Sadker, Sex Equity
Handbook for Schools (New York: Longman, 1982),
134-137; Georgia Collins and Renee Sandell, Women,
Art, and Education (Reston, VA: National Art Education
Association, 1984), 189-200.
2 AAUW Report, "The Classroom as Curriculum," How
Schools Shortchange Girls (Washington, DC: AAUW
Educational Foundation, 1992), 68-74; AAUW Report,
Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children,
1998, Summary.
3 Frances Thurber, "A Study of Women Artists in the K-12
Art Curriculum in the United States." Survey conducted
as part of a research grant from the National Art
Education Association Foundation, 1999. Presented at
NAEA National Conference, New York, 2000.
4 Marilyn Stewart, Thinking Through Aesthetics
(Worcester, MA: Davis Publications, Inc., 1999), provides
excellent suggestions and methods for using aesthetic
approaches).
5 Terry Barrett, Talking About Student Art (Worcester,
MA: Davis Publications, Inc., 1998).
6 Peggy Orenstein, School Girls: Young Women, Self-
Esteem, and the Confidence Gap (New York: Doubleday,
1994), 3-32.
7 Further resources and information are available from
the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues
Caucus (LGBTIC), an affiliate of the National Art
Education Association, 1916 Association Drive, Reston,
VA 20191-1590. See also Jeff Perrotti and Kim
Westheimer, When the Drama Club Is Not Enough:
Lessons from the Safe Schools Program for Gay and
Lesbian Students (Boston, MA: Beacon, 2002).

Supporting a Gender-Equitable Climate in the Art Classroom 89

Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies

This chapter illustrates how four K—12 educators, making critical choices, might

include content to enhance gender equity in lesson planning. For several years,

the authors have collaborated with these four teachers in various art education

projects and curriculum initiatives. Their work is highlighted here because they

bring their personal knowledge, experiences, values, and beliefs about equity

into both their curriculum development and teaching. Each teacher selected a

self-authored and successful unit of art instruction and identified possible roles

that gender, art, and culture might play within the unit. They were challenged

not merely to tack on more information, but to analyze how, in their units,

both content and pedagogy could become more responsive to gender issues.

Some ideas presented in this chapter also reflect the results of brainstorming

and conversation between each teacher and this book's authors. Other sugges¬

tions included are the authors' responses to the written unit plans.

91
 7.1 A young child's plan of the ideal house.
Continually rethinking content and strategies
in units of instruction is an important process for
teachers. Moving toward gender equity in art
classrooms is one of those essential ongoing
processes. Choices about imagery to explore, pos¬
sible themes, art-making activities, strategies for
talking and writing about the art, and student
performance outcomes were revisited.1 Those
collaborations and the additional suggestions
offered by this book's authors demonstrate a
variety of substantive ways to bring gender issues
into existing curricula. The sample units are not
92
fixed or final products. Instead, these four win¬
dows into practice are offered as examples of
enrichment that might occur in art curricula when
gender issues become a significant element in
planning for instruction.
Each of the four sample units focuses on a unique
developmental level: Grades K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and
10-12. After a brief introduction to each unit,
Chapter 7 highlights suggestions for instructional
strategies that confront gender issues, and provides
possible gender-related outcomes for each unit of
study.
Chapter 7
Unit 1 (Grades K-3): "Building The K-3 Art Specialist Reflects
Communities: From the Drawing Board
"Classes at the elementary level often allow stu¬
to City Council Decisions"
dents to experiment with different media, learn
The first curriculum unit, created by a K-3 art
about different artists, and to complete projects
specialist, explores the impact of architecture
based upon previous or new experiences. Many of
on culture.2 Its already rich content was expanded
these completed units are classified under two- or
by the teacher, not only to include contributions
three-dimensional assignments including: drawing,
by women architects, but also to broaden students'
printmaking, paintings, paper cut-outs, sculptures,
definitions of what architecture might mean for
masks, fibers, pottery, and mixed media. Archi¬
various cultural groups, and for both women and
tecture is often omitted from the curriculum.
men. This art specialist had carefully designed
activities in this unit to be highly participatory Architecture is very exciting because it is a part of

and sensitive to students' diverse learning styles. our environment. We live within the environment

These elements remained intact in expanding the so it's totally different than a painting or a print on

the wall where you look at it and can analyze it or

unit because they are basic to gender-equitable
talk about it in a more detached way. When a
learning contexts.
teacher came to me and asked if I could possibly
The scope of this unit spanned grades K-3.
develop a unit on shelters, I found this to be an
Historical and contemporary architectural forms
exciting challenge. ... As an art specialist, I ques¬
created by several male and female architects
tioned whether I could make connections with
were highlighted. Lessons allowed each student
social studies, math, language arts, and art, and
to work cooperatively to create one community-
introduce kindergarten and first grade students
service structure as well as one building of his or her
to . .. architecture and architects. Since this is pre¬
choice. Many instructional strategies from its sequen¬
dominantly a male-dominated area, could I provide
tial lessons were already designed to empower girls
information regarding significant architectural forms
and boys to assume roles of leadership in the art¬
that were planned by females?"
making phases of the lessons and in students' role-
playing activities as they developed their unique
"community." These strategies included:
Students analyzed the works of men and women
architects and created, on a floor-size format,
their own three-dimensional oak tag forms for a
city.
Students formed their own city council and dis¬
cussed problems they would eventually have to face
as adult women and men in the community.
Students explored the meaning of social class and
what kinds of buildings were constructed for differ¬
ent populations across time and history.

Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies 93

Women in Architecture turn the old Paris railway station on the left bank

of the Seine, the Gare d'Orsay, into the new

Architecture can be thought of very narrowly, or
nineteenth-century museum, the Musee d'Orsay.
it can be thought of as the built and designed
Maya Lin won her first major commission in her
environment. Women have been involved in archi¬
early twenties to design the Vietnam War •
tectural practice and in other areas of environmen¬
Memorial. In 2004, Zaha Hadid, an architect born in
tal design. By broadening the definition of what
Baghdad and who now lives in London, became the
one thinks about in terms of architecture, it
first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize,
becomes easier to include women in the curriculum.
the profession’s highest award. Another important
For example, Rae Eames, a woman, collaborated
approach to bringing women's voices into an archi¬
with Charles Eames. Together, they formed one of
tecture unit would be to bring in female architec¬
the foremost design teams in the twentieth century.
tural critics. An outstanding example is Ada Louise
Eileen Gray is another very important twentieth-
Huxtable, who was the premier architectural critic
century designer. Margaret McDonald and Frances
of the 60s and 70s, the first architectural critic of
McDonald were key collaborators with Charles
the New York Times, and the winner of a Pulitzer
Rennie Macintosh in the Arts and Crafts and Art
Prize for distinguished criticism. She played a major
Nouveaux movements in architecture and design in
role in the birth of the Historic Preservation move¬
Scotland.
ment in the United States.
Texts tend to talk about "great architects" just as

they single out "great artists," as if important archi¬

tecture were the product of a solitary genius.

Flowever, architecture is always a team effort.

Women were often collaborators on architectural

projects. Denise Scott Brown has been a long-time

co-author and full collaborator and partner with

Robert Venturi. Jane Drew was a major collaborator

with Le Corbusier on his new capital city in India.

Sophia Flayden was the first professionally trained

woman architect in America, designing the

Women's Building at the Columbian Exhibition, a

great world's fair held in Chicago in 1893. Julia

Morgan is best known for her design of San

Simeon, the Flearst Castle in California. In fact, she

was the first woman to study architecture at the

Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and designed many

important buildings. In recent decades, there have

been more and more successful women architects.

Gae Aulenti received the prestigious commission to

Chapter 7
 These activities provided the opportunity for
girls, as well as boys, to practice effective leadership,
and for boys, as well as girls, to practice cooperation.
Carefully chosen groups and closely monitored gen¬
der dynamics are empowering experiences for girls
and boys. By including examples by several female as
well as male architects, the teacher made it clear
that architecture is a profession that is open to both
genders.
Students also worked with HyperStudio® soft¬
ware and created computer-based interactions for
their classroom Web page throughout the unit. Such
an activity for female students at this early age is an
especially important opportunity for them to gain
experience in an area which is fast becoming a
"boy's club" in many educational settings.
Taking on the Challenge
In designing the original unit, the teacher made
a conscious effort to address several issues of
gender, including full participation by female
students in decision-making processes. Based on
discussion of strategies suggested in Chapters 5
and 6, she might additionally consider the
following suggestions:
Design a set of key questions about architecture
that includes explicit and implicit gender issues.
Questions might include:
What does an architect do? Who can become an
architect? How can you prepare while in school to
become an architect?
Why are there more male architects than female
architects?
Who are the leaders making rules for our commu¬
nity? How can both girls and boys become
leaders in our community when they grow
up?
Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies
Consciously conduct research about little-known
women architects and designers. Include their
contributions in the unit's list of famous architects.
Thinking about different types of structures in
society and the women who designed them,
examples might include:
Dwelling Places: San Simeon, 1922-1939 —
Julia Morgan
Working Places: Terminal One at Los Angeles
National Airport, CA—Norma Sklarek
Recreational or Cultural Places: Musee D'Orsay,
Paris—Gae Aulenti
Places of Worship or Reflection: The Vietnam
Veterans' Memorial, Washington, DC—
Maya Lin
Implement an active/collaborative assessment
activity that directly provides for gender equity.
For example, focus on assessment strategies where
girls as well as boys have the opportunity to
explore technology, such as videotaping or produc¬
ing digital movies of student conversations, as
students "show" and sell to peers the drawings
of homes they have designed. Use teacher observa¬
tion to assess student involvement in this role-
playing activity. As a result, both girls and boys
become empowered to operate successfully within
their social structure, not only collaboratively,
but also as entrepreneurs.
What Might Students Learn about Gender?
The original unit design included excellent student
outcomes regarding students' success in the practice
of valuing and use of critical thinking skills. Some
gender-focused outcomes suggested for this unit
might include a student's ability to:
Recognize the differences among architects,
painters, or draftspersons and understand the con-
95
 An Elementary Classroom
cept that interior designers, furniture designers,

Teacher Reflects or wallpaper designers are also an integral part

of architectural design. Many women, as well as
*
"What I have done in the past few years,
men, participate in these professions.
in teaching about portraits along with
Recognize the contributions of various female
the American Revolution, was to bring
and male architects.
an awareness to my students about por¬
Appreciate domestic as well as public architecture
traits being the beginning of fine art in
as an art form.
the United States. I focused on the male
Understand connections between the arts and
portrait artists I had found in my
other fields of study, particularly fields like math,
research. I talked with students about
science, engineering, drafting, and technology—
these artists, and how they came to be a
all areas where women traditionally have lagged
part of the recording of history of the
behind in career development.
new United States as a nation. Yet, I had

a feeling that I wanted to do more with

Unit 2 (Grades 4-6): "Faces of the Past:
the idea that women, as pointed out in
Portraiture as Documentation
our social studies book, were also a part
of American History and Herstory"
of that history being created.
The second unit, authored by a fourth-grade
The ideas about gender and art we dis¬
classroom teacher was originally designed as an
cussed have provided some really good
interdisciplinary exploration of Colonial America,
motivation for me to want to do some
the American Revolution, and the role of portraiture
more research ... to be able to spend
in the eighteenth century in the United States.3
some time doing some more reading
This interesting unit evolved to include various roles
before I attempt to put revisions down
of women, as well as men, during these times—in
on paper, I guess. I see that's where I am
daily life, as well as in artistic accomplishment. Now,
at this point. . . and I feel a sense of
students might make deeper connections with art
confidence that the ideas I'm headed
and how it relates to contemporary daily life, as
toward are going to work . .. now to
well as learning about an emerging culture, for
get more meat behind it. . . names,
both women and men, more than two centuries
facts, credible ideas."
ago.
Students had read and studied about the devel¬
opment of three Colonial regions in America.
Students had also looked closely at the tradition
of portraiture during this time period.
The original unit included portraiture by well-
known male artists such as John Singleton Copley
and Gilbert Stuart. For purposes of comparison,
examples of highly successful women portraitists

96 Chapter 7
might have included Sarah Miriam Peale or The Authors' Perspective on Women
Judith Leyster. Also, portraits for the middle and Portraiture
class were sometimes painted by self-taught or
This teacher was asked to wrestle with the chal¬
itinerant artists, and thus do not appear in most
lenge of taking a unit plan that was initially topical
art history texts today. Women likely created
and to rethink the basis of the unit in terms of a
some of these anonymous works that are found
thematic approach, using big ideas related to her
in various museum collections and in newer art
existing social studies curriculum. If she began with
history texts.
a thematic approach, she would be able to include

the role of art in society and to focus on issues of

Taking on the Challenge
gender in a more meaningful way in the unit.
In expanding this unit to include the social roles of
The teacher had attached handouts to the first draft
women in art and society, this teacher was not only
of the unit on heroic women in the Revolutionary
able to teach about American history and how mem¬
War and women in battle. They highlighted excep¬
orable people were honored through portraiture,
tional roles for women. One of the issues in this
but also was able to introduce her students to key
unit could be an exploration of how we might
gender issues not mentioned in most available teach¬
understand what gender roles are generally
ing resources. Some of those strategies include
accepted in societies, rather than simply focusing on
opportunities to:
i the "exceptional female." In what different spheres

did men and women operate? Many of those differ¬

Create discussion activities that focus on gender and
ences are reflected in portraiture. For example, John
equity within the historical period.
Singleton Copley's archetypal images of both men
Discuss how the difference in the social status of men
and women during the Revolutionary period charac¬
and women was determined: the man's was deter¬
terized them in very different ways.
mined by his wealth and accomplishments; the
woman's by her association to the man. Also, one of the reasons portraiture is so interesting

Colonial portraits furnished a record of the physi¬ is that it was one of the main genres in which

cal appearance of, and costume and settings associ¬ women have worked since the sixteenth century,

ated with, those portrayed. Thus, the paintings were even though few women portrait artists are

able to convey social and aesthetic meaning during reported in the art history texts. The whole idea of

their time, and today they provide historical signifi¬ the portrait "miniature," created by female as well

cance. Discuss how portraits drew attention to one's as male artists as an intimate sort of endeavor dur¬

social status and one's gender role, and how they ing that time, provides an interesting counterpoint

highlighted a person's professional accomplishments to the idea of portraiture as heroic and historic.

and personal interests. These very small images were accessible and accept¬

Compare two portraits—Major Thomas Biddle by able for educated women to create. Raising these

Thomas Sully and Anna and Margarette Peale by issues can lead to a discussion of gender roles in a

James Peale. Study the facial expression and "iconog¬ historical context in the past and in the present.

raphy," the signs and symbols within the imagery of

Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies

97
 "Don't Forget the Ladies"—Abigail Adams, writing to husband
John, who was at the Constitutional Convention. The issue of
women's rights was one that surfaced during the founding of
the United States and, at about the same time, during the
French Revolution.
Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, one of the founding
fathers, and mother of a future leader, John Quincy Adams,
was recognized as a pioneer for women's rights in the days of
the Revolutionary War and during the establishment of the
United States. Due to her husband's travel obligations, Abigail
managed the family farm, sold property, oversaw rental prop¬
erty, bred livestock, purchased land, paid taxes, collected
debts, and even bought war bonds. All of these tasks would
not have been considered a task for a woman, were it not for
the wartime conditions. Abigail and other women proved, at
this time, that women were not inferior. The traditional sex
roles were not adequate guidelines for the extreme situations
of war.
Another example follows, which opens up rich possibilities
for discussing women's varied contributions to the history
and culture of their time;
Many believed that, as Ben Jonson said, "Women are but
men's shadows." Or as Euripides said, "A woman should be
good for everything at home, but abroad good for nothing."
Their roles had always been those of wife and mother. No
vocations were considered suitable for upper-class women;
thus, their goal as maturing young women was to marry well.
It was believed that if women pursued more than the domes¬
tic or maternal role, they would be sacrificing their femininity.
It seemed that the goal of female education was to produce
better wives and mothers. A woman or wife's most important
responsibility was to raise republican sons to love their coun¬
try and to preserve its character. After the Revolution, there
was a growing concern that if mothers were to provide that
foundation for young men, then they needed to be better
prepared; thus, education for girls was established.
98
the artwork that help reveal its meaning and signifi¬
cance. You could add an image created by one of
the Peale family's female artists here during the dis¬
cussion. Discuss whether or not the male and female
Peales had equal opportunities to become successful
painters.
Discuss male and female roles during this period
in history. List some tasks women had during the
Revolutionary War. If Thomas Sully had painted a
portrait of a woman during the Revolutionary War,
what poses and icons might have been appropri¬
ate? Plan and draw a portrait of a woman who
lived during the Revolution, including appropriate
clothing and icons. Next, create a portrait of a
modern woman. This activity could provide a great
opportunity to talk about gender stereotypes, then
and now.
Develop key questions that help students to under¬
stand portraiture, not only as art, but also as docu¬
mentation of history across time.
Here is an obvious place to bring in the lack of histori¬
cal recognition of women artists and the notions of
women as "objects or subjects" of painting. Add to or
replace existing questions about historical portraiture
so that the unit might more fully explore these gender
issues, with questions such as: How did portraits from
the Colonial and Revolutionary War periods relate to
the lives of men and women in the community, not
only those holding economic, political, or religious
power, but also those without power?
Explore why this teacher's research unearthed so
few women painters.
In selecting key artists and works of art for this unit,
the teacher realized early on that recognized por¬
trait artists in America were male, with very few
exceptions.
Chapter 7
 For example, Charles Willson Peale established Anna Claypoole Peale, another member of the
the first public gallery in the United States in famous Peale family, was a well-known and active
Philadelphia. It included portraits of many military painter of portrait miniatures. The idea of miniature
and political figures of the time. Public portraiture painting introduces the idea of women's artistic pro¬
seemed to promote civic virtue and a "dynastic" duction outside the historical mainstream of large-
type of authority. The Peale family had many well- scale painting and sculpture.
known artists in its midst. C. W. Peale was extremely
unusual for his time, in that he provided artistic Implement art-making experiences that move
training for both his female and male children, as beyond development of artistic or technical skill to
well as other relatives. In fact, among the Peales, explore key issues such as gender roles and art.
several in the family roster of professional artists The basic art-making activity for this unit was origi¬
were women, including Sarah Miriam Peale, a suc¬ nally based on Lesson 8 from Adventures in Art,
cessful portrait painter in the nineteenth century. Grade 5 (Davis Publications, 1998). Although stu¬
Students might discuss why the women artists in dents explored varied concepts, such as working with
the Peale family are less famous today than the a grid, proportion, and careful observation, an
males, even though several of them had successful expanded unit would allow students to investigate
careers. the sociological and social aspects of portraiture as
\
Select some documented women portrait artists for
students to study.
For example, though not American, the first woman
portrait painter this teacher found in her research
was Judith Leyster, who had a very successful career
in Holland in the seventeenth century and was a
friend and contemporary of the artist Frans Hals. She
worked during a time in which most artists special¬
ized in one type of painting. She was exceptional in
that she painted portraits, still lifes, and scenes of
everyday life. Remarkably, she was a member of the
Artists Guild in Haarlem and even taught male art
students. After she married, she left her artistic
career to manage her husband's real estate. Her
work was often wrongly attributed to Frans Hals.
Although Leyster was not the first woman por¬
7.2 Judith Leyster (Dutch, 1609-1660), Concert,
traitist, she was an extraordinarily important and
ca. 1631-1633. Oil on canvas, 24x34 1/4" (61 x
successful one. Leyster's self-portrait reveals her to
87 cm). The National Museum of Women in the
be a confident and competent artist. How does she Arts, Washington, DC. Gift of Wallace and
show this to the viewers of her self-portrait? Wilhelmina Holladay.

Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies

99
Contemporary Portraits

Try This: In a subsequent lesson, allow students to

view and discuss images of contemporary portrai¬

ture. Examples might include the art of Chuck Close,

Robert Colescott (particularly his self-portrait that

appropriates the image of Washington crossing the

Delaware River), Frida Kahlo's self-portrait, Living in

Two Worlds, or portraiture created by Sylvia Sleigh,

Audrey Flack, May Stevens, and Andy Warhol.

Arrange for students to compare and contrast these

contemporary portraits with the seventeenth- and

eighteenth-century portraits they have studied in

terms of who is painted, how are they painted, and

why they were painted. Focus on each artist's gen¬

eral intent in being a portrait artist in his or her

society. A variety of issues of gender and personal

identity can be brought out in this discussion. For

example, both the female and Mexican facets of

Kahlo's identity played a major role in her art and

self-portraiture. What other connections can you
make for your students to discover? In what ways
could these activities be further modified or
extended to give them even more conceptual
7.3 Anna Claypoole Peale (American, 1791-1878),
Nancy Aertsen, ca. 1820. Watercolor on ivory, oval:
3 112 x 2 x 718" (9x5x2 cm). The National Museum of
Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Gift of Wallace
and Wilhelmina Holladay.

richness?

well. Since elementary classroom teachers often have

little or no studio art training, carrying the rich con¬
ceptual content of a lesson into the art-making
activities is one of the greatest challenges classroom
generalist teachers will likely face.
Have some students create small, more personal
portraits of family, friends, etc. Other students can
draw large imposing, more historical or public por¬
traits. Students can then compare and contrast the
dynamics that are created by changing the size and
subject matter of their artworks. They can debate
whether one approach should be more valued than
the other.
 An alternative would be to create self-portraits
that reveal students' aspirations for future work
and careers. These portraits can reflect uniqueness
and vision with the objects and accessories that
students choose to represent their identities within
the artworks. For example, a student who hopes
to excel in professional sports might include a piece
of athletic equipment in her or his self-portrait.
Students have an opportunity here to explore and
distinguish between authentic signs and symbols
that reflect their aspiring roles in our communities
and signs that have become stereotypes. The
teacher can also raise questions about gender-
related roles that students choose.
Implement a variety of reflective assessment
activities that provide for all students' successful
understanding of gender equity issues.
Using many presentation styles to accommodate the
varied learning styles in the classroom, introduce
information and require student feedback. Ask for
student feedback in visual, written, and auditory for¬
mats, taking care that boys and girls participate on
an equitable basis.
Instruct students to write a paragraph about
what "famous" meant—in Colonial or Revolutionary
War times—and what the label "famous" means
today. Discuss the idea that there are many people
who play important roles in society who are not
famous. Discuss how women and men have con¬
tributed to society throughout history.
In addition to checking the students' comprehen¬
sion of proportion or placement of facial features
in their completed portraits, invite students to com¬
pare critically the facial arrangement and other
aspects of their finished work to Leyster's portrait.
What would they leave in their own portrait study
after seeing Leyster's again? What items or features
Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies
would they change or discard? Women's art is used
here as a critical model and valued as a standard for
comparison.
What Might Students Learn about Gender?
Teachers might measure: a student's ability to
develop insight into the roles of ordinary women
in early Colonial culture as represented in Colonial
portraits; the degree to which students understand
the importance of portraits as records of historical
figures, but also that many others who played
important roles in society, including many women,
were not memorialized in portraits; or a student's
appreciation of their own self-portraits as demon¬
strations of the social, historical, and technical
attributes of the art form.
Unit 3 (Grades 7-9): "Unique Social
Commentary through Art: Giving Voice
to Cultural Oppression"
The third unit, written by a K-6 art specialist, origi¬
nally provided an overview of imagery created by
ten ethnically diverse women artists and a few male
artists, and it also included the teacher's own art¬
work.4 By narrowing the selection of women artists
to four, and by focusing on the theme of artists pro¬
viding voices against cultural oppression, the unit
could offer considerably richer content. The unit's
redesigned learning activities provide more opportu¬
nities for students to focus on and to exercise their
own artistic voices.
Taking on the Challenge
An overview of lesson ideas from this lengthy unit
indicated that students could engage in meaningful
learning in a variety of ways. For example, when
viewing examples of art by Kathe Kollwitz, students
discussed sub-themes of how "opposing forces cre-
101
A Middle School Art Specialist ate conflict" and how "mistreatment breeds hostility
Reflects that is vented toward oppressors." When the
teacher showed a slide of his own painting. Soldier,
"I wrote this unit because a lot of times %

and explained it from his own frame of reference as

when I ask students to name a woman
an artist of color, he introduced the.sub-theme "in
artist, a whole bunch of hands will go \

war, people show inhumanity to other people." He

up—then I say 'besides Grandma
referred and contrasted World Wars I and II and the
Moses'—a whole bunch of hands will go
Vietnam War. He mentioned that Kollwitz lost her
down. And then I say 'besides Georgia
oldest son in World War I, and a grandson in World
O'Keeffe.' By then, there are no hands
War II, and that these losses devastated her and
left up in the air. So I felt there was a
caused her to become a pacifist.
definite need to get women artists into

the art curriculum.

Throughout the unit, I use my own art¬

works for visuals—and other male

artists, too—but it's really women artists

who are the meat of the unit. I wanted

to have a more multicultural focus in

the unit, so three of the artists were

Chicana. I included one German artist—

Kathe Kollwitz. I saw her work when

I was in college. A lot of times, I

never noticed artists' first names,

and I assumed men created those

pictures.When I found out that

the work was from women artists .. .

rather than being less interested in

the work, I think it made me more

interested in the work."

7.4 Kathe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945), The Downtrodden,

1900, Etching and aquatint on paper, 9 3/4 x 12 1/8" (25 x 31 cm).
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.
Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay.
 The original lesson suggested gender-related The Authors' Perspective about
issues to explore further, but did not specifically Unpeeling the Layers of Gender:
confront them in the lesson's written design. The Exploring Complex Issues
following suggestions may be helpful to take the
The initial intent of this lesson was to expand stu¬
unit further in terms of student learning regarding
dents' exposure to women beyond customary
gender.
lessons involving Georgia O'Keeffe and Grandma
Moses. The unit originally focused on nine or ten
Provide students with an opportunity to reflect
artists with an overview of their styles and meth¬
on similarities and differences in male and female
ods for creating art. Some of the artists that stu¬
artists' roles in societies.
dents encountered in the original unit included
By taking a narrower focus on the number of artists
Kathe Kollwitz, Judy Chicago, Yolanda Lopez,
originally presented in an instructional unit—opting
Carmen Lomas Garza, and Judy Baca. By narrowing
for depth rather than breadth—teachers can provide
the focus of the unit to include fewer artists, the
students with an opportunity to directly explore criti¬
unit explores ideas about life and approaches to
cal gender-related ideas or concepts.
art, rather than mere biographical overviews or
replication of distinctive art techniques. Three of
Consider trying a personalized approach in lessons.
the American artists in the unit are Chicana; their
As a male art teacher, this art educator used his
\ art often reflects cultural oppression they experi¬
own artwork to demonstrate that not all males
enced personally, or as members of a minority cul¬
delight in conflict, and that social concern is not
ture. This teacher also presents a couple of
limited to women. He also demonstrated his particu¬
examples of art by men, including his own artwork,
lar interest, as a male teacher, in issues of gender
to demonstrate common concerns that cross
equity, a worthwhile example for female and male
gender lines.
students.
Students learn that the subject matter of art is not
necessarily the same as its meaning or content.
Allow students to follow the personal development
Hopefully a time will come when we do not need
of a famous contemporary female artist.
to single out the work of women artists in art
For example, in the introduction of this unit, its
lessons. It appears that we are not yet at that stage
author referred to a woman artist who deals with a
in many schools around the country. Since this
theme that has personal, ethnic, and universal
teacher's theme is about voices against social
implications, and whose art deals with profound
oppression, it is not just a presentation of women
questions. Judy Chicago, who has been an advocate
artists, but it provides insight into who has the
of women artists since she was a child, felt the
power to make a statement, and what they get to
oppression of a male-dominated society, especially
say in our society. By focusing on the meaning of
while attending school. A male college professor
these artists' messages, students become aware
told her that women did not make any significant
that artists provide social and cultural critiques of
contributions to European culture. However, she
society and actually help to reshape society. They
was encouraged to learn about and to create art by
become aware that women and men can express
their beliefs and values through art.

Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies

103
 her family, who also encouraged her to stand up
to all forms of cultural oppression. In her Holocaust
series, Chicago uses art to focus on the Nazi
attempt to destroy the Jewish people and other
minorities, before, during, and after World War II.
Students can discuss how she sees the Holocaust in
relation to other forms of oppression and genocide.
Chicago sees oppression of all groups, including
women, as related. Ask students to respond to the
following: Why would the Nazis do this to the
Jewish people? Are there common elements in
all kinds of prejudice? Are there less extreme
forms of prejudice than genocide that are still
destructive? These might include racial, gender,
or ethnic stereotyping that we often find in
works of art and other images of popular culture.
Students might look for such examples and discuss
them in class. This is a great opportunity to chal¬
lenge stereotypes and biased images of all kinds,
not just isolating gender bias as a "separate"
issue of oppression.
Introduce students to artworks that represent the
role and transformation of archetypes in a culture.
In this lesson, for example, the Chicana artist
Yolanda Lopez, who has manipulated images of
the Virgin of Guadalupe in her work, was intro¬
duced. The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is
seen as a mystical heroine, a unifying Mexican
nationalistic symbol important to Indians, Mestizos,
and American-born Spaniards. Lopez suggests that
Our Lady of Guadalupe is also symbolic of an
oppressive and controlling force over women and
Indians. She recognizes that the image parallels
male Mexican heroes, such as Emiliano Zapata and
Diego Rivera. The Virgin image is also a figure of
motherhood that appeals to the poor and weak.
Introduce students to the image of a youthful
104
Yolanda Lopez portrayed as a confident Virgin of
Guadalupe in running shoes—leaping out of an
oval frame like Superwoman, clutching a snake as
her partner. Lopez portrays herself as the Virgin in
a visual counterpoint to the traditional image that
depicts a young, beautiful woman with a light
complexion—completely different from her Indian
heritage.
Challenge students to explore bias against both
women and people of color, and to appreciate an
individual's ability to transcend these prejudicial
factors.
To illustrate, Carmen Lomas Garza is a woman
artist whose experience growing up in an Anglo-
dominated society in Texas is a prime example of
cultural oppression. She was discouraged from
being an artist from the time she was very young.
She refused to succumb to this 1950s ideology and
her genre scenes vividly portray her childhood,
adolescence, and various other periods of her life.
Her art highlights the beauty and pride of Chicano
culture. Despite many hardships, and with little
encouragement, she persevered and continued
her artistic education to earn a Master's Degree
in art. She is now recognized as a significant
contemporary artist.
Encourage students to explore universals seen
through women artists' experiences.
This is often done with male artists, but seldom with
women. For example, Judy Baca, who is also featured
in this unit, is known for mural paintings created in
collaboration with Los Angeles gang members. She
uses social commentary to reflect the cultural oppres¬
sion that Chicanos and Chicanas have endured. She
also questions the restrictive and limited female role
that has been traditional in Chicano culture.
Chapter 7
Implement a variety of specific activities involving Creating Interdisciplinary Links:
active learning, as well as reflective assessment Suggestions from the Teacher
strategies that provide opportunities to confront
Arts: Blues, gospel, and folk singers, such
diversity and gender equity. For example:
as Odetta, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez,
After viewing several dramatic and expressionistic
make social commentary through their
images, ask students to discuss the imagery and doc¬
music. The music of Tracy Chapman,
ument their success in relating the images to gender,
Linda Ronstadt, Los Lobos, and Bob
race, class, sexual orientation, and other issues in
Marley often deals with cultural oppres¬
contemporary society.
sion as well.
Encourage students to create and to evaluate
Literature/Language arts: The Diary of
personal artworks about meaningful social com¬
Anne Frank
mentary. For example, after students pick a current
event that has social, political, or other implica¬ Movies: Schindler's List, Triumph of the

tions, they can make personal statements about Spirit

how these positive or negative social situations
affect them. Ideas include family and other per¬
sonal relationships, dreams for the future, sexual
identity, or the existence of crime, drug, and alco-
hoi abuse, gangs, etc. Suggested topics from the
media include: "the glass ceiling" in hiring women;
trials; bombings in New York, Oklahoma, or Saudi
Arabia; child abuse; prison release; death penalty
issues; etc.
Social studies: The Civil Rights move¬
ment and Rosa Parks's refusal to give up
her seat on a bus in Alabama to a white
man; World War II and the social injus¬
tice and prejudice toward perceived ene¬
mies, minorities, and women, such as in
Nazi Germany, in Japanese internment
camps in the western U.S., the detona¬
tion of two atomic bombs over Japan, or

recent international acts of terrorism.

What Might Students Learn about Gender?
By focusing on examples by women and
Many student learning outcomes in the original unit
men, a more equitable picture of culture
were inherently gender-sensitive. The unit's out¬
is conveyed to students. Can you think
comes most relevant to gender issues were that
of any more interdisciplinary linkages for
learners participating in these activities would be
this unit from within your own region or
able to: community?
Examine and discuss works of art from the per¬
spective of cultural oppression using historical, criti¬
cal, aesthetic, and creative approaches.
Understand that issues of gender, race, and class
are closely connected when considering the oppres¬
sion of a given social or ethnic group.
Select an issue in the context of their own that
relates to cultural oppression or social commentary.

Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies

105
 A High School Art Specialist Reflects: Students can transform and interpret this big idea
by creating an appropriate art piece. This activity
"I taught both beginning and advanced pottery at
provides a wonderful opportunity for the explo¬
my high school, so I was always on the lookout for
ration of gender issues from a very personal per¬
a new assignment with artists whose work
spective.
addresses several cultural themes. When I was in

Kansas City at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art a

Unit 4 (Grades 10-12): "People Across
few years ago, I happened to see a show by
Time and Place Respond to an Aesthetic
Magdalene Odundo. It was just breathtaking to me.
That Uses Human Form as a Means
Her pots are large vessels that almost become
for Creative Expression"
organic sculpture. I saw highly burnished, beauti¬
The fourth unit, prepared by a high school art
fully blackened forms in a low-lit gallery. They just
specialist, was, in its original state, an in-depth
seemed to have a life of their own. I thought how
unit centering on the life and artwork of one
exciting it would be to show my advanced students
female sculptor.5 By weaving threads of gender
her work. I also wrote the unit as a focus on human
issues throughout the unit, this teacher subsequently
diversity.
enriched the unit by comparing the work and ideas
"Odundo has a rich cultural and ethnic background. of other appropriate artists in the learning experi¬
She came to New Mexico and saw how the San
ence, and also by providing a sociocultural explo¬
lldefonso people burnished their pottery . . . and
ration of the female body as "subject" rather than
[she also went] to her homeland Kenya where she
"object" in art and society.
studied how women there had made pottery for
The rich theme in this unit lends itself to the
thousands of years. She sees vessels as organic
introduction of a broad range of examples and the
forms and also relating perhaps to the human
exploration of a variety of gender-related issues.
female form. She is very much concerned about
Key works of art explored in the original unit
how society puts different standards on what the
included ceramic vessels created by Magdalene
female form should look like. I thought that was
Odundo. An expanded unit might also focus on
another neat tie-in when talking about—especially
fiber sculptures by Magdalena Abakanowicz and
to our teenage girls—what is 'beautiful,' and why
figurative sculptures by Camille Claudel. These
it is considered beautiful and would it be consid¬
three excellent artists, ranging over time, place, and
ered beautiful in another culture now?
culture, share a focus on the female form as a vehi¬
"Personally viewing Odundo's work in separate cle of artistic expression. The style of their work
museum exhibitions deeply inspired me. I feel that ranges from primarily representational to more sug¬
a teacher must have a passion and love for the les¬ gestive and expressive uses of the figure. The
son to inspire students in their creative endeavors." authors were also intrigued by the idea of trans¬
forming an instructional unit that was essentially
about the celebration of a single artist and collabo¬
rating with the teacher to reframe the content of

106 Chapter 7
Meet the Artists
Magdalene Odundo
Magdalene Odundo, a contemporary African potter, was born
in Nairobi, Kenya and educated in India, Kenya, and England.
She was initially trained as a graphic artist in Kenya, but
became restless with the medium and decided to explore the
possibilities of clay. Her blending of the knowledge of the
world's ceramic history resulted in refined vessels that suggest
natural forms. Odundo sees her pots as metaphors for the
human, and especially the female, body.
Camille Claudel
Camille Claudel was born in 1864 near the Champagne region
of France. She was given the unisex name, Camille, in memory
of a brother who lived only a few weeks. She began molding
clay at an early age. Her early sculptures already exhibited a
force and naturalism that linked them with the new concep¬
tion of sculpture being explored by Auguste Rodin, although
Claudel had never heard of him. The meeting between Rodin,
then forty-three, and Claudel, nineteen, led to a fifteen-year
relationship. Claudel was his model and apprentice, and he
was her teacher. Their relationship of collaboration and love
ultimately became one of turmoil. Claudel is an excellent
choice for examining the complex and difficult position in
which women artists often found themselves in relation to
their more senior and established male mentors. This has been
a very common situation for women artists throughout history.
Magdalena Abakanowicz
Born in 1930, near Warsaw, Poland, Abakanowicz played in the
forest surrounding her wealthy family's estate. She made
sculptures and environments out of clay, stones, and twigs.
This sensitivity to the process of growth and decay developed
a sculptural style years later that expressed the human figure
in unconventional media: sisal fibers, hemp, wool, burlap, and
Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies
horsehair. While some may say that Abakanowicz's sculpture
expresses a darker, expendable side of the human condition,
others may argue that nature's continual cycles endure in her
work.
Traditionally, the female form is omnipresent in art, in the form
of goddesses, symbolic figures, portraiture, and as an object of
male desire. This unit focuses on women artists who use the
metaphor of the female body as their "subject," their expres¬
sive vehicle, in contrast to the myriad works in which a male
artist uses the female form as a mere "object" presented for
the (male) viewer's pleasure (often referred to as "the gaze").
Common images of women can be a key factor in creating
restricted gender expectations, in relation to appearance, role
choices, and other issues of importance in women's and girls'
lives. This issue of the relationship of the female form to stan¬
dards of beauty is one such issue with direct relevance to
teenage girls' lives. One need only think of the cosmetics
industry and the prevalence of eating disorders. Focusing on
work by these women artists allows the teacher to challenge
students' stereotypical notions of the female.
7.5 Magdelene Odundo
(African; Kenyan, born
1950), Untitled, 1994,
Ceramic; 17 3/4 x 12"
(45 x 30 cm). The
Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art, Kansas City,
Missouri. (Purchase:
Acquired through the
generosity of Morton
and Estelle Sosland.)
107
 the unit into a larger world view. Odundo's sculp¬
tural art, drawing on the female form for its visual
identity, was more far-reaching in its strong voice
and presence than a careful study of its formal
elements would unearth.
In this unit, students formulated standards of
beauty for the female figure in history by viewing
artwork by the aforementioned artists and by view¬
ing contemporary images of women in popular
media. Through comparison of artworks and images
from popular culture, students hopefully gained an
understanding of several philosophical approaches
to beauty. It would also be possible to examine criti¬
cally the very concept of beauty. Is it a universal or
culture-specific idea? How does beauty differ across
genders and across cultures, in both its form and
effects on society?
In another component of the unit, students
created an artwork in clay or fiber suggesting a
human figural form. The ensuing emotional
response could be further expressed not only
visually, but also in writing, poetry, or musical
composition. This activity provides both girls and
boys an opportunity for deeply personal expression
in which they explore attitudes about the male
and female form.
Taking on the Challenge
We often think of various forms of craft or "handi¬
work" as being particularly a female or a male pur¬
suit. The medium of clay can transcend those
traditional roles, as can the contemporary fiber art
and earthworks of Magdalena Abakanowicz and
the sculptures in classic marble by Camille Claudel.
Students can experience rich exploration by looking
at the roles society places, not only on its artists,
but also on the media of expression the artists
choose.
108
Ask challenging key questions about the relation¬
ship of art, aesthetics, and gender issues, such as:
Does an aesthetic response to the female form vary
from one society to another due to a society's cul¬
tural heritage? Can an opinion or artwork that
opposes the societal standard of beauty survive?
Is beauty a feminine concept? How is beauty defined
in masculine terms? Does our standard of beauty in
today's society vary due to age, experience, power
base, or culture?
Implement activities that challenge students to
explore images of women in visual culture as well as
in artworks across time and place.
For example, arrange for students to categorize
contemporary magazine advertisements or other
examples of contemporary visual culture, such as
film, etc. according to their presentations of the
female figure as a theme. After students discuss
possible categories, ask them to list the standards
used for their evaluation. Discuss hidden messages
contained in the advertisements. Students can make
further connections between contemporary figural
images and reproductions of selected artworks.
Ask students to discuss similarities in mood, pose,
and message.
Introduce art-making experiences that provide for
deep individual involvement by students.
After creating contour line drawings of a posed
student model, ask students to list a variety of
emotions (embarrassed, elated, hopeless, etc.)
they might have experienced in their lives. Arrange
for a volunteer to pose in a few postures that
reflect a selected emotion. Have students draw
several contour line drawings of the model's inter¬
pretation of the selected emotion. They can discuss
the use of exaggeration as a means of personal
Chapter 7
expression. Students can then translate their Have You Considered Gender Matters
drawings into three-dimensional artworks using in Art Relative to Other Cultural
fiber or clay. Connections?

• Identify positive health issues raised in health

Implement specific collaborative and reflective
and sex education classes as they relate to
assessment strategies that provide opportunities for
American culture's view of female and male
students to confront gender equity directly.
images.
Evaluate outcomes by doing one of the following:
• Collect references about positive/negative images
engaging the class in critiques with discussion,
of the female form in poetry and literature.
group-written critiques, or personal interviews
between students and teacher. For example, each • Highlight consumer products purchased in our

artist's life story can be told with discussions on how economic system that link health and well-being

the artists' life experiences affected the visual to the attractiveness of the female form.

strength of their sculptures. Students will subse¬

• Investigate the role of television, movies, theater,
quently analyze similarities and contrasts among the and printed media in targeting the persona of
three artists' works. Such a discussion helps to put
"perfect" female and male images.
women artists' works in their historical, cultural, and
• Become educated about available local and
social contexts.
national resources for gay, lesbian, bisexual, or

questioning students in your school setting. Take

What Might Students Learn about Gender?
measures to provide a safe environment in your
By including Odundo, Claudel, and Abakanowicz
art classroom for all students regardless of gen¬
in the unit, the teacher was able to emphasize the
der or sexual orientation, especially when discus¬
contributions of women to the arts, expand her
sions about sexual orientation occur.
personal interest in the life stories of the artists,
and introduce her male and female students to • Become informed about the rise of eating disor¬

the media of clay and fiber as a means of personal ders prevalent in contemporary culture and their

artistic expression. long-term effects on society.

In a review of other possible student outcomes These linkages can tie the study of art directly to
for the unit, the following suggestions may ensure students' contemporary concerns, particularly those
that students successfully understand a broad range pressing concerns for girls and boys, that relate to
of gender-related concepts. Students will compre¬ body image.
hend that:
Awareness of social, cultural, class, ethnic, and
gender influences informs artists in the creation of
their artwork.
Interpreting the body as an art form has been a
universal theme whose meaning is derived from
internal and external information. An artwork can

109
Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies
 have multiple meanings depending on the artist's
and the viewer's context. The gendered aspects of
this outcome can be explored in the context of how
the body is viewed and used in various societies and
cultures.

110 Chapter 7
Notes
1 Through many years of working collaboratively as disci¬
pline consultants for the Prairie Visions Institute, and
using a comprehensive approach to art, the authors
have developed a core set of beliefs about how to gen¬
erate meaningful curriculum units in art. For further dis¬
cussion about their process, see Gary Day, Michael
Gillespie, Martin Rosenberg, Joanne Sowell, and Frances
Thurber, "A View from the Field: DBAE for Inservice
Teachers," Visual Arts Research 23, no. 2, 1997, 52-62.
2 Linda Jorgensen is an experienced art specialist from a
rural Midwestern community. At the time when she cre¬
ated her unit, she taught art to grades K-3, meeting
with students in their classrooms in thirty- to fifty-
minute sessions for five consecutive days. She met them
again every third week for a similar rotation. She
planned her instruction to fit that one-week time frame.
Now retired, she was a master teacher, whom preservice
art educators often observed. She has also provided
leadership in her school district for effective use of tech¬
nology in classrooms with young children. Fler article
"The ABC's of Architecture" was published in SchoolArts
Magazine 91, no. 9, May 1992, 34-37. She has received
numerous regional and national awards for her leader¬
ship in art education and excellence in teaching. She
developed an interest in architecture and archeology as
a child when she and her brother would play in a large
earth bank in their back yard where they constructed
towns, cities, and other imagined environments. Fler
unit provides students with a rare opportunity to
explore an area of art with which women's participation
is not often associated.
3 Linda Weinert is an upper-elementary classroom teacher
with many years' experience in a suburban Midwest ele¬
mentary school. Although responsible for teaching
math, science, reading, language arts, and social studies,
Linda's love of art has caused her to infuse her lessons
with art content whenever it is appropriate and mean¬
ingful to her classroom context. She has been a leader in
art curriculum development in her school and in her
Windows into Practice: Four Case Studies
school district and has many years' experience working
as a team leader for the Prairie Visions Institute. She
received a recognition award from the Nebraska Art
Teachers Association for her distinguished service to art
education as a classroom teacher. Fler participation in
this project is an important model for classroom teach¬
ers who wish to include visual art as a core component
of their overall classroom curriculum.
4 David Manriquez, an elementary school art specialist,
teaches art in a large urban school with a culturally
diverse population. Fie is an educator with many years
of experience as a teacher, an artist, and student men¬
tor. Fie has participated in regional teacher programs
geared to developing more contemporary views of art
and art education. Raised in the neighborhood where
he teaches, and as an artist of color, he serves as role
model and mentor for many of his middle-school-age
students. The authors were especially interested in his
original unit because he involves his own artwork as a
counterpoint to several female artists' artistic contribu¬
tions to the unit's content.
5 Caroline Schmitz taught art for several years at a large
urban high school, where she facilitated student learn¬
ing in the media of fiber arts, ceramic art, and other
applied arts. A majority of her students, particularly in
the advanced studio sections, were female. She is also
an experienced art methods instructor for preservice
classroom teachers at a nearby university. Fler original
unit focused primarily on formal and expressive qualities
found in the sculptural vessels of international artist
Magdalene Odundo. She expanded the content and
learning activities in her unit to include the art and aes¬
thetic content of Magdalena Abakanowicz and Camille
Claudel. In doing so, she opened up the content of her
unit to help students understand a feminist view of the
value of art in society and to comprehend how the
female figural form emerges as a means of having a
voice in contemporary society.
111
 %

Chapter
Gender Equity

in the Ideal Art Classroom

"This is a time of suddenly acknowledged multiplicity and diversity. Voices long ignored or
long repressed are making themselves heard, many of them demanding that we look at things
from their perspectives and recognize how numerous are the ways of defining what is 'real.'
At once, and more and more frequently, we in education are being challenged to look through
unaccustomed lenses at life in classrooms: for example the lens of gender, so seldom utilized
in educational history."

— Maxine Green, "Gender, Multiplicity and Voice."1

As one can see from discussion in the previous chapters, bringing gender

equity into art content and the classroom environment is a complex under¬

taking. Teachers can easily become confused in attempting to promote

gender equity unless they have some plan or vision to deal with gender

issues in their own teaching behaviors that includes the methods they

use to design the classroom environment and to select course content.

 An Inclusive Body of An Inclusive Pedagogy for
Knowledge about Art: Female and Male Students:
Facing Our Own Gender
Biases
Histories and Herstories of Artists Activety Pursuing Knowledge
Role of Gender in Imagery about Art and its Gender
Subject of Gender in Interpretation, Connections
Perception and Evaluation of Art Providing Mentoring and
Variety of Artistic Role Models Guidance for Female and
Traditional and Non-traditional Male Students
Career Choices Designing Activities and
Interventions into Existing Curricula Behaviors Designed to
To Confront Content Found in Confront Student Bias or
“Null” and “Evaded” Curricula Stereotyping
Selection of Content Enabling Using Diverse Questioning
Students to Find Meaning and Discussion Strategies
From a Variety of Using Diverse Assessment
Perspectives Strategies
Being Aware of Diverse
Student Learning Styles

An Inclusive Environment for

Male and Female Students:
• Safety and Nurturance Provided in the Art Classroom for All Students Regarding Situations Involving Issues of
Class, Race, Sexual Orientation, Religion, or Physical Condition
• Appropriate and Supportive Language Modelled By Teacher and Used by All Students
• Visual and Informational Displays Designed to Illustrate Multicultural and Gender-Sensitive Perspectives
• "Hidden Curriculum” Exposed Regarding Teacher Expectation and Recognition of of Student Performance
• Texts or Other Resource Materials Selected for Potential to Confront Issues of Gender Equity
• Diversity Valued by Teacher Who Clearly Defines Expections for Student Behavior in the Art Classroom
• Social and Intellectual Collaboration Among Students Actively Promoted by Teacher Who Establishes Groups
Across Lines of Gender, Class, Race, or Other "Separating” Labels

8.1 Strategies for Gender Equity in the Ideal Classroom.

At the least, teachers can choose to do nothing
about gender equity in their art classrooms by main¬
taining their existing biases, stereotypes, and
assumptions that gender problems do not exist. At
best, teachers can become agents of change for each
unique student in their art classes by ensuring that
all students will be nurtured and prepared for their
lives in the twenty-first century. So, how would this
ideal art classroom appear? How would it differ from
any other classroom where art is taught?
Optimally, gender issues in the art classroom
will surface in three general aspects of teaching:
in teachers' actions, behaviors, and expectations
for students; in the design and maintenance of
the art classroom environment or setting; or in the
key ideas or art content that teachers select for
students to explore.
The diagram in Figure 8.1gives visual form
to the relationship among these three components:

114 Chapter 8
Domain I: Actions Teachers Can Take "Looking Within"
The first task at hand, before beginning the redesign
Researchers Georgia Collins, Renee Sandell, and
of course content or classroom environment to
Ann Sherman have developed insightful self-
achieve gender equity, is to take stock of one's
administered questionnaires for taking personal
own personal behaviors and assumptions and one's
inventory of our own beliefs and assumptions
gender-based expectations for students. To begin to
about gender issues, art, and art education.2 The
create a more gender-equitable classroom, each of
first inventory included statements and questions
us must increase our personal awareness of gender
such as: "Women concerned with sexism in the art
issues and honestly confront any biases or stereo¬
world should put more effort into learning their
types we might harbor. Only then can teachers
craft rather than organizing to protest sex discrimi¬
actively pursue an increase in knowledge about
nation in art education, critical reception, and his¬
women artists, the role of women in the world of
torical treatment." (p.185) We are asked to rate our
art, and appreciation of the ideas and perspectives
own agreement on a scale from one to five. What is
that both genders bring to our students.
your response to this statement? Another statement
Teachers of art are in a solid position to provide
asked: "If feminine-identified art forms, media,
guidance or mentoring for their students. Perhaps
styles, process or subject matter have been given
the teacher will inspire some female students to
less status, it is not because of their association
become professional artists or some male students to
with women but because they have intrinsically less
become elementary school art educators. Perhaps,
art value. Monumental public sculpture honoring
even for students who do not follow professional
war heroes is of more value to a community than is
careers in art, the teacher will instill a love of the
miniature flower painting." (p. 186)
arts, providing opportunities for students to use the
What are your opinions about this statement? How
arts as a vehicle for finding meaning in their highly
might your perceptions about this belief affect your
diverse lives.
teaching of art?
Ideally, teachers will adopt a variety of teaching
strategies when they set up student learning activi¬ In the second questionnaire, we are asked to exam¬

ties and assessments by keeping in mind students' ine our own practice concerning nonsexist art edu¬

gender, different learning styles, ethnicity, social cation. For example, "When showing female and

class, and other factors of diversity. male nudes, do you discuss the role of the observer

and the idea of person as object? Do you discuss

Domain II: Creating and Maintaining how these ideas have been influenced by the mass

the Right Environment media as well as the fine arts? Do you discuss the

Teachers have a responsibility to students to create a implications of these conceptions for the develop¬

learning environment that is safe for them and free ment of self concept and body image in boys and

of discriminatory treatment. At a minimum, it is the girls"? (p. 243) How would you answer the ques¬

right of each of our students to learn and grow in a tions above that are posed in this list? How you

classroom that supports his or her unique personality respond will provide an insight into your own

and set of skills, a setting free from bias, unequal deeply embedded values about gender in the world

of art.

Gender Equity in the Ideal Art Classroom 115

 opportunity, and stereotyping. However, if teachers
truly believe in gender equity, a merely safe environ¬
ment is not enough. One must actively model and
reinforce unbiased language or visual displays in the
art classroom. One must actively promote and re¬
inforce collaboration among our students in both
social and academic interactions. One must make
available art materials, texts, and visual resources
which are not only free from gender bias, but which
also emphasize diverse gender perspectives in their
presentation.
Teachers should make a commitment to be open
and clear with students about their expectations of
their students' achievements. Teachers need to ask
8.2 Art Students in Class. Photo: Dave Manriquez.
themselves if they have equitable expectations for
all students, regardless of their gender, sexual orien¬
tation, ethnic origin, or social class.

8.3 A Student Drawing. Photo: Dave Manriquez.

8.4 Middle School Art Teacher Dave Manriquez.

Photo: Dave Manriquez.
Domain III: Selecting Meaningful The Nonsexist Classroom
Concepts for Student Exploration
Theresa McCormick, author of Creating the Non-
The issue of gender does not exist in isolation. Issues
Sexist Classroom, A Multicultural Approach,5 sug¬
of gender are complex. As a condition of identity,
gests that curriculum content in a nonsexist,
gender is inextricably tied to each student's ethnic,
culturally inclusive classroom should be based on
cultural, religious, political, physical, and economic
the following principles:
status as well. Teachers' choices for curriculum con¬
• It should integrate the concept of gender with
tent in art should reflect that complexity and be a
race, ethnicity, class, age, and social class.
rich source of information for students as they sort
out and define their place in the world. • It should be interdisciplinary.

Christine Sleeter, another expert in the field of • It should incorporate a reconceptualization of

education and diversity, goes one step further to
offer us a hierarchy of curriculum structures in which
to organize ideal gender-balanced curricula.3 Based
on an earlier framework by Tetrault, Sleeter urges
teachers to constantly integrate gender issues with
issues of both race and class to develop an accurate
picture of diversity in their curriculum content.4 Her
work supports the research by art educators dis¬
cussed in Chapters 2 and 6. Analyze the relationship
between the two frameworks in Table 8.1 and apply
knowledge that shifts from the androcentric
(male-centered) perspective to a more holistic
one that includes both males and females.
• It recognizes that knowledge is a social con¬
struction that must be viewed in a contextual
framework.
• It recognizes different learning and thinking
styles and is structured to accommodate them.
• It incorporates a variety of instructional strate¬

them to your own situation as you construct your gies that attend to the needs and values of girls

ideal K-12 or college-level art curriculum. and women.

Making the decision to rethink existing curricu¬
• It takes the experientialist approach to curricu¬
lum content to measure up to Sleeter's Level 5 in
lum, an approach which incorporates the every¬
the framework above might seem very challenging day experiences of diverse kinds of people.
or time-consuming. However, students, whether
• It incorporates feminist perspectives on
they are female, male, bisexual, wealthy immi¬
pedagogy.
grants from South America, recently arrived
refugees, Muslims, Christians, or physically chal¬
lenged youth, deserve nothing less from commit¬
ted art educators.
Art is about how human beings relate to the
social world. Students are trying to sort out who
they are and where they fit in the world. Art and art
education give them a window into the possibilities
and provide an opportunity for students to find their
own voices, to say something about ideas that mat¬
ter to them. Art educators can help make this hap-

117
Gender Equity in the Ideal Art Classroom
 Table 8.1 Comparing Curriculum Approaches for Equity and Diversity
Levels of Structure for Curriculum Inclusion
1. indicates the lowest level
5. indicates the highest level
1. A single dominant paradigm drives cur¬
riculum choices.
2. A "contributions" approach or an "exceptions to
the rule" approach from the non-dominant sector
are added to the dominant paradigm.
3. A separate-but-equal approach to representation
of experience from dominant and non-dominant cul¬
tural sources.
4. Inclusion of content exclusively about or
by one non-dominant sector of society—
a "women's" curriculum.
5. A major paradigm shift reflecting the socially con¬
structed nature of knowledge and power in society—
requiring curriculum choices that serve to decrease
oppression of non-dominant cultural groups and fully
represent them in the cultural context.
118
Tetrault's Framework for Content: Focusing on Gender
*
(Attempts to undo the notions that "Genders are
Opposite" or that "Female Gender Is an Inadequate
Version of Male Gender.")'
This curriculum is a male-defined curriculum.
This is curriculum that includes contributions by
women who manage to exceed social, cultural,
and intellectual expectations in an otherwise
male-dominated paradigm.
This curriculum focuses on differences in experi¬
ence between genders. However, gender separa¬
tion operates as a means of domination of one
gender over the other; particularly the male
gender over the female.
This curriculum content is chosen to highlight,
enhance, and celebrate women's knowledge,
contributions, and skills in society relative, for
example, to the disciplines of art.
This is a gender-balanced curriculum drawing
upon equal knowledge and experiences of indi¬
viduals from both female and male genders as
appropriate within the curriculum content.
Chapter 8
Sleeter's Framework for Content: Focusing on Integration of Race,
Class, and Gender

(Accepts that power is held by those who are economically and

ethnically privileged within both male and female gender arenas.)

This curriculum presumes that by adding experiences and

knowledge defined by white, heterosexual, economically privi¬
leged women to our curriculum content, the problem of an
only-male-defined curriculum is resolved.

A more cosmetic than solid approach to diversity, this is curriculum

content where middle-class white women's experiences are
regarded as more universal than distinct—especially in regard
to labels of ethnicity, sexual orientation, and social class. Contri¬
butions by non-dominant groups such as women of color, gay
men, or aged persons living in poverty are added in a separated
context or in minimal amounts to curriculum content.

In this "bifocal approach" (p. 231), curriculum confronts the notion

of "other" for females as well as males. This approach recognizes
that privileged women in society oppress other women from a dif¬
ferent class or ethnicity. Individuals of male gender not fitting into
a white, economically privileged paradigm of power can also be
equally oppressed.

This is curriculum content about and by women who are not

white and economically privileged. This curriculum shifts the
notion of power within the framework of female gender to now
focus more exclusively on those who have been oppressed within
that framework.

This curriculum is about "emancipatory discourse" (p. 235): Power

(thus representation in curriculum) is to be shared equitably with
people who function outside centers of power. This conception
provides a balanced inclusion of ideas from all specific ethnic,
economic, and gendered cultures represented in the local school
and community culture.

119
Gender Equity in the Ideal Art Classroom
 pen for their students. Mr. David Manriquez, who faction that they have made a difference in the
teaches a widely diverse student population and world for all their students.
whose lesson is described in Chapter 7 reflects: Students will realize their full emotional and
"I know I'm effective with my students because I intellectual potential in terms of finding a place for
allow myself to be personally involved. And I'll tell themselves in the world. »
them things about growing up, and about my fam¬ Schools will become places of safety for all stu¬
ily, since I grew up in the same neighborhood where dents to learn, to grow, to relate, and to envision
I now teach. For example, members of my family their future, regardless of gender, cultural identity,
were encouraged to do art. Both my brother and I or class.
are now art teachers. My sister was a really good Communities will become better able to with¬
artist, too; maybe better than the rest of us . . . and stand or manage the complex and rapidly occurring
she excelled in school. She really should have gone challenges facing all communities and the larger
to college. I look back on that, and it was society. world, politically, environmentally, and technologi¬
She was not encouraged to go on to college, but to cally, now and into the future.
get herself a husband and have a family. . . . This book is your invitation to make a personal
One of my goals is to introduce more women contribution toward gender equity in art education.
artists to my students. But more than that, I want to We have much to accomplish.
have more diversity of ideas in my curriculum, so I
focus on images and social commentary provided by
women artists of color as well. For example, Carmen
Lomas Garza. Her life, growing up, what she had to
endure. That she was discouraged from being an
artist because she was a woman and a minority. I'm
sure that hurt her. I like to tell my students that she
struggled but finally went on to get her Master's
Degree in art. She is a really good example that you
can make it [succeed]. Her paintings are easy for my
students to understand. They show her family doing
things together. A focus on family is good for today.
My students are really familiar with her work now.
It's something they can relate to and they feel really
comfortable with it."6
What are the benefits for teachers, students,
schools, and our communities if teachers are success¬
ful in creating an ideal art classroom where issues of
difference and the "other" become instead occasions
for creating a curriculum of possibility?
Teachers, as caring professional educators, will
experience a sense of integrity and feelings of satis¬

120 Chapter 8
Notes
1 Maxine Green, "Gender, Multiplicity and Voice," Ch. 14,
in Sari Knopp Biklen and Diane Pollard, eds., Gender
and Education (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1993), 241-255.

2 First questionnaire reference from Georgia Collins and

Renee Sandell, Ch. 9, "Sex Equity Revision Through
Practical Applications in Art Education," Women, Art,
and Education (Reston, VA: NAEA, 1984), 183-201.
Second set of questions referenced are from Ann L.
Sherman, "Questions That Those Concerned with Non-
Sexist Art Should Ask," in Appendix C of Georgia Collins
and Renee Sandell's book, 242-248.
3 Christine Sleeter, "Power and Privilege in White Middle-
Class Feminist Discussions of Gender and Education,"
Ch. 13, in Gender and Education, 1993, 221-240.
4 Mary Kay Thompson Tetrault, "Integrating Content
about Women and Gender into the Curriculum," in
James A. Banks and Cherry A. Magee Banks, eds.,
Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives (Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, 1989), 124-144.
5 Theresa Mickey McCormick, Creating the Nonsexist
Classroom: A Multicultural Approach (New York,
Teachers College Press, 1994), 88.
6 Excerpt from interview with middle school art teacher
David Manriquez, May 1999.

Gender Equity in the Ideal Art Classroom

121
 The following resources might be helpful as you plan
to rethink your art curriculum for gender equity:
*

Women Artists
The alphabetical list below, includes more than two
hundred women artists, designers, architects, art crit¬
ics and historians, and others involved in visual cul¬
ture from Europe, America, and other countries. It is
an incomplete list. Many more women have been
artists across time and in diverse cultures than are
listed here. This selection may not reflect certain
(international, national, or regional) women artists
Resources whom you highlight in your curriculum already.
These names were selected from the following
publications, among others:
Collins, Georgia and Renee Sandell, eds. Women,
Art, and Education, Reston, Virgina: NAEA, 1984,
220-235.
Gaze, Delia, ed. Dictionary of Women Artists, 2 vols.
Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
Heller, Jules and Nancy G. Heller, eds. North
American Women Artists of the 20th Century,
New York: Garland, 1995.
Heller, Nancy G., Women Artists: An Illustrated
History, 3rd ed. New York: Abbeville Press, 1997.
Grosenick, Uta. ed.. Women Artists in the 20th and
21st Century, New York: Taschen, 2001.
Reynolds, Margaret, ed. National Museum of Women
in the Arts, New York: Abrams, 1987.

For additional sources of information on women

artists, see Resource Section "Feminist Histories of
Art and Women Artists" below.
Which artists do you recognize? Which artists
have you highlighted in your teaching? Use the texts
mentioned above to learn more about these interest¬
ing individuals and think about how you might
incorporate them into your curriculum.

122
 Magdalena Abakanowicz Constance Marie-Charpentier Zaha Hadid
Anni Albers Barbara Chase-Riboud Helen Hardin
Consuelo Amezcua Chryssa (Vardea) Grace Hartigan
Emma Amos Anna Claypoole Peale Mona Hatoum
Laurie Anderson Judy Chicago Sophia Hayden
Sofonisba Anguissola Camille Claudel Edith Head
Eleanor Antin Sue Coe Anne Healy
Diane Arbus Helen Cordero Barbara Hepworth
Gae Aulenti Louisa Courtauld Eva Hesse
Alice Aycock Imogen Cunningham Joan Hill (Chea-sequah)
Judith Baca Josefa de Ayala Hannah Hoch
Jennifer Bartlett Elaine de Kooning Malvina Hoffman
Marie Bashkirtseff Niki de Saint Phalle Rebecca Horn
Ann Bateman Agnes Denes Harriet Hosmer
Vanessa Beecroft Jane Drew Ada Louise Huxtable
Cecilia Beaux Susan MacDowell Eakins Maria Izquierdo
Vanessa Bell Ray Eames Lotte Jacobi
Lynda Benglis Mary Beth Edelson Jane Jacobs
St. Hildegarde of Bingen Eirene Valerie Jaudon
Isabel Bishop Ende Patricia Johanson
Nell Blaine Minnie Evans Gwen John
Anna Blunden Leonor Fini Frances Benjamin Johnston
Rosa Bonheur Janet Fish Lois Mailou Jones
Lee Bontecou Audrey Flack Ruth Blalock Jones
Louise Bourgeois Lavinia Fontana Frida Kahlo
Margaret Bourke-White Mary Frank Donna Karan
Romaine Brooks Helen Frankenthaler Gertrude Kasebier
Denise Scott Brown Meta Warrick Fuller Lila Katzen
Joan Brown Carmen Lomas Garza Angelica Kauffmann
Selma Burke Giovanna Garzoni Mary Kelly
Deborah Butterfield Artemisia Gentileschi Anne Killegrew
Sophie Calle Natalya Goncharova Yeffe Kimball
Calypso Eva Gonzales Anna Elizabeth Klumpke
Julia Margaret Cameron Sarah Goodridge Florence Knoll
Emily Carr Nancy Graves Ida Kohlmeyer
Rosalba Carriera Eileen Gray Kathe Kollwitz
Leonora Carrington Kate Greenaway Kora
Mary Cassatt Mary Grigoriadis Joyce Kozloff
Elizabeth Catlett Nancy Grossman Lee Krasner
Coco Chanel Guerrilla Girls Barbara Kruger

Resources
123
 Adelaide Labille-Guiard Alice Neel Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Suzanne Lacy Louise Nevelson Kiki Smith
Betty LaDuke Elisabet Ney Joan Snyder
Dorothea Lange Patsy Norvell Lilly Martin Spencer
Ellen Lanyon Magdelene Odundo Napcy Spero •
Marie Laurencin Georgia O'Keeffe Pat Steir
Laya Meret Oppenheim Alice Barber Stephens
Sherrie Levine Emily Osborn Florine Stettheimer
Lucy Lewis Sarah Miriam Peale May Stevens
Helen Levitt Clara Peeters Renee Stout
Edmonia Lewis Tonita Vigil Pena Michelle Stuart
Samella Lewis Irene Rice Pereira Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Judith Leyster Howardena Pindell Toshiko Takaezu
Maya Lin Eunice Pinney Dorothea Tanning
Lucy Lippard Adrian Piper Sonia Terk-Delaunay
Hung Liu Griselda Pollockhjhj Alma Thomas
Linda Lomahaftewa Pop Chalee (Blue Flower) Marietta Robusti Tintoretto
Yolanda Lopez Bridget Riley Charleen Touchette
Frances McDonald Faith Ringgold Anne Truitt
Margaret McDonald Charlotte Robinson Mierle Laderman Ukeles
Muriel Magenta Dorothea Rockburne Doris Uimann
Marisol Lucy Maddox Brown Suzanne Valadon
Agnes Martin Properzia de' Rossi Remedios Varo
Maria Martinez Rachel Ruysch Pablita Velardi
Queen Matilda Ann Ryan Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
and court ladies Alison Saar Charmion von Wiegand
Rosemary Mayer Betye Saar Kay WalkingStick
Ana Mendieta Kay Sage Patti Warashina
Maria Sibylla Merian Norie Sato Laura Wheeler Waring
Mary Miss Augusta Savage June Wayne
Joan Mitchell Jenny Savile Rachel Whiteread
Paula Modersohn-Becker Miriam Schapiro Gertrude Vanderbilt-Whitney
Tina Modotti Ellen Wallace Sharpies Joyce Wieland
Julia Morgan Judith Shea Hannah Wilke
Berthe Morisot Cindy Sherman Jackie Winsor
Anna Mary Robertson Moses Elizabeth Siddall Beatrice Wood
(Grandma Moses) Elisabetta Sirani Mariana Yampolsky
Gabriele Munter Norma Sklarek Marguerite Thompson-Zorach
Las Mujeres Muralistas Sandra Skoglund Barbara Zucker
Elizabeth Murray Sylvia Sleigh

124 Resources
Practical Curriculum Resource Materials
The following selection represents some examples of
the workbooks, personal narratives, or curriculum
resources about gender or women and art now
available for use in the art classroom:
Crawford, Susan Hoy. Beyond Dolls and Guns: 101
Ways to Help Children Avoid Gender Bias,
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996.
Dermon-Sparks, Louise and the A.B.C. Task Force.
Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering
Young Children, National Association for the
Education of Young Children, Washington, DC,
1989.
Gallas, Karen. "Sometimes I Can Be Anything":
Power, Gender and Identity in a Primary
Classroom, New York: Teacher's College Press,
Columbia University, 1998.
Hicks, Laurie E. "The Construction of Meaning:
Feminist Criticism." Art Education, 45, 2 (1992),
23-31. A fully developed art unit presented on
four artists exhibiting in a show called "Woman
Figured by Man: A Rereading of 20th Century
Visual Representations" that focuses on the polit¬
ical dimension of art, particularly on the concept
of oppression.
Horgan, Dianne D. Achieving Gender Equity:
Strategies for the Classroom, Boston: Allyn &
Bacon, 1995. Offers pages of practical work¬
sheets, activities, and strategies for achieving
gender equity.
Howard, Nancy Shroyer. Helen Cordero and the
Storytellers of Cichiti Pueblo, Worcester, MA:
Davis Publications, Inc. Available by calling (800)
533-2847.
Hubbard, Ruth Shagoury, Maureen Barbieri, and
Brenda Miller Power, eds. "We Want to Be
Known": Learning from Adolescent Girls, York,
Resources
ME: Stenhouse, 1998. Shares narratives and
poems from adolescent girls, and offers hands-on
suggestions for dealing with gender in the mid¬
dle school classroom.
Kordich, Diane D. Images of Commitment, Tucson,
AZ: Crizmac, 1994. A series of thematic art cur¬
riculum units based on the artwork of Isobel
Bishop, Kathe Kollwitz, Maya Lin, Mary Ellen
Mark, Maria Martinez, Jenny Holzer, Alice Neel,
and Faith Ringgold.
National Museum of Women in Art Catalog, New
York: Abrams, 1987.
Remer, Abby. Pioneering Spirits: The Lives and Times
of Remarkable Women Artists in Western History,
Worcester, MA: Davis Publications, Inc., 1997.
Accompanying slide set available.
Roberts, Helene E., ed. Encyclopedia of Comparative
Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art,
London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998.
Sills, Leslie. Inspirations: Stories About Women
Artists, Niles, IL: Albert Whitman & Co. Stories
about Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Faith
Ringgold. Distributed by the Women's History
Project, 7738 Bell Rd., Windsor, Canada 95492.
Available by calling (707) 838-6000.
Summers, Claude J. ed. The Queer Encyclopedia of
the Visual Arts. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 2004.
Turner, Robyn Montana. Portraits of Women Artists
for Children, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993.
Four texts representing Rosa Bonheur, Mary
Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, and Georgia O'Keeffe.
125
 Resources Found on the Web
Interesting Web sites offering information and
resources about gender issues and art:
American Society for Curriculum Development
(ASCD). Various articles on gender issues appear
in Educational Leadership and in other ASCD
paperback publications. Also available from
ASCD: An Arts Education Topic Pack (Stock
# 197197) (800) 973-2723. [ASCD.org]
Eisenhower National Clearinghouse. Equity Materials
(1999). For access to archived equity materials:
[http://equity.edreform.net/resource/977]
Federation of Women Teachers Association of
Ontario. "Gender Issues in the Media."
Curriculum Insert 13. 1, 1-8. For grades 4-6.
$2.00. Available from Media Watch, Suite 204,
517 Wellington St. W, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5V 1G1
The J. Paul Getty Trust provides an extensive Web
site with archived lesson plans, teacher
exchanges, and resources for art education.
[www.getty.edu/education]
Indiana University School of Education/Great
ldeas/"Teacher Talk'VLesson Plan. "Developing an
Awareness of Gender Bias in Art Interpretation"
by Tama Richardson, middle school art instructor.
Link provided by [www.educ.indiana.edu]
"Media and Body Image." Media Awareness
Network. Excellent Web site with lessons plans
and Web links about the effects of media on
children in terms of body image, gender
portrayal, and self-concept in society.
[www.media-awareness.ca]
"Men For Change." Group in Halifax, Nova Scotia,
advocating gender fairness and nonviolent social
solutions. Web site includes interesting lesson
ideas about media and links for women's input as
126
well. [www.chebucto.ns.ca/Community
Support/Men4Change/m4c safe.html]
"My Little Pretty: Images of Girls by Contemporary
Women Artists." Museum of Contemporary Art.
Make an online visit to this past exhibition as well
as others from the museum's collection.
[www.mcachicago.org]
National Art Education Association and Affiliates.
[www.naea-reston.org] Extensive resources avail¬
able on gender issues, multicultural art education,
and art education practice and theory. Call (800)
299-8321 for catalog or orders. The NAEA
Women's Caucus Web site is [http://art-
education.concordia.ca/naeawc]
National Center for Curriculum Transformation.
Resources on Women, Towson University,
Maryland. Institute for Teaching and Research on
Women. "Essay on the Discipline of Art Education
and Gender" as part of a series on academic disci¬
plines. Available for $7.00 at (410) 704-5457 or
[www.towson.edu/ncctrw]
National Museum of Women in Art is in the process
of developing an online database of more than
16,000 artworks in its collection. To contact the
museum by telephone, call (202)783-5000.
[www.nmwa.org]
National Women's Caucus for Art. Seminars, exhibi¬
tions, networking opportunities for artists/educa¬
tors. Affiliated with College Art Association.
[www.nationalwca.com]
"The Victorian Web." Site on women and Victorian
culture, including the visual arts, [www.victorian-
web.org]
The National S.E.E.D. Project (Seeking Educational
Equity and Diversity) on Inclusive K-12 Curricu¬
lum. Center for Research on Women, Wellesley
College, Wellesley, MA 02181, (781) 283-2504.
Offers summer leadership workshops for teachers
Resources
 on gender equity and diversity in the classroom.
[www.wcwonline.org/seed]
National Women's History Project website offers
extensive information and links regarding
women's contributions to history. For informa¬
tion: (707) 636-2888 or
[www.nwhp.org/tlp/links/links.html]
U.S. Department of Education Publishing Center.
"Trends in Educational Equity of Girls and
Women: 2004." Publication ID: ERN3781P. For
information on many available equity resources,
call (877) 4-ED-PUBS or order online.
[www.edpubs.org]
Women Artists in Canada.
[www.collectionscanada.ca/women]
National Library of Education: Education Resources
v
Information Center (ERIC) provides a database of
information for hundreds of resources including
those on gender and art. For finding information on
ERIC, go to [www.eric.ed.gov] or [http://searcheric.org]
Some full-text documents are available for down¬
load. The following list of citations shows examples
from query results using "gender" and "art educa¬
tion" as key words in the search:
ED406308 Badman, Jacqueline and Lisa Lewis-Spicer.
Let's Meet Famous Women Artists: A Creative Art
Activity Book. A teacher's guide featuring nine¬
teen famous women artists' biographies and
enrichment/research activities.
ED392658 Barrett, Terry and Gilbert Clark, eds.
"Lessons for Teaching Art Criticism."
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Social Studies
Development Center, 1995.
EJ419224 Blandy, Doug and Kristin G. Congdon.
"Pornography in the Classroom: Another
Resources
Challenge for Art Education." Studies in Art
Education 32, no. 1 (Fall 1990): 6-16.
EJ538385 Bolin, Paul E. "We Are What We Ask."
Art Education 49, no. 5 (September 1996): 6-10.
EJ720153 Caruso, Hwa Young Choi. "Art as a
Political Act: Expression of Cultural Identity, Self-
Identity, and Gender by Suk Nam Yun and Yong
Soon Min." Journal of Aesthetic Education 39, no.
3 (Fall 2005): 71-87.
ED375015 Collins, Georgia and Renee Sandell.
Women, Art, and Education. Reston, VA: NAEA
Publications, 1984.
ED370583 Condron, Linda, et al. "Women and the
Discourses of the Visual: Where Are Women in
This Picture?" Previously unpublished opinion
paper, 1993.
EJ419136 Dossor, Dinah. "Gender Issues in Tertiary
Art Education." Journal of Art and Design
Education 9, no. 2 (1990): 163-69.
ED394889 Eisenberg, Bonnie and Mary Ruthsdotter.
"Courageous Voices: Curriculum Unit on Women
and Language Arts." Windsor, Canada: National
Women's History Project, 1989.
EJ415745 Ettinger, Linda F. and Elizabeth Hoffman.
"Quilt Making in Art Education: Toward a
Participatory Curriculum Metaphor." Art
Education 43, no. 4 (July 1990): 40-47.
ED356998 Falk, Candace et al. "The Life and Times of
Emma Goldman: A Curriculum for Middle and High
School Students." Primary historical documents on:
Immigration, Freedom of Expression, Women's
Rights, Anti-Militarism, Art and Literature of Social
Change. Emma Goldman Papers Project, Berkeley,
CA: University of California, 1992.
ED402265 Fehr, Dennis Earl. "Dogs Playing Cards:
Powerbrokers of Prejudice in Education, Art and
Culture." Counterpoints. Studies in the
Postmodern Theory of Education, vol. 5.
127
 EJ419225 Garber, Elizabeth. "Implications of
Feminist Art Criticism for Art Education." Studies
in Art Education 32, no. 1 (Fall 1990): 17-26.
ED385507 Gaskell, Jane and John Willinsky, eds.
Gender Informs Curriculum: From Enrichment to
Transformation. New York: Teachers College Press,
1995.
ED378110 Gaudelius, Yvonne, ed. The Women's
Caucus Report 52 (Summer/Fall 1993).
EJ419227 Hicks, Laurie E. "A Feminist Analysis of
Empowerment and Community in Art Education."
Studies in Art Education 32, no. 1 (Fall 1990):
36-46.
EJ631870 Holloway, Debra L. and Margaret D.
LeCompte. "Becoming Somebody! How Arts
Programs Support Positive Identity for Middle
School Girls." Education and Urban Society 33,
no. 4 (August 2001): 388-408.
EJ528523 Kellman, Julia. "Women's Handwork:
Stories of Similarity and Diversity." Art Education
49, no. 2 (March 1996): 33-39.
ED398154 LaDuke, Betty. Women Artists: Multi¬
cultural Visions.
ED 466966 McCoubry, Sharon, ed., "Gender Issues in
Art Education." BCATA Journal for Art Teachers
40, no. 1 (Summer 2000). Special issue on gender.
ED410152 Smith, Peter J. The History of American
Art Education: Learning about Art in American
Schools. Contributions to the Study of Education.
Number 67.
EJ496944 Springer, Julie. "Women, Power, and
Empowering Imagery." Instructional Resources.
Art Education 47, no. 5 (September 1994): 27-30,
43-46.
ED347099 Stankiewicz, Mary Ann and Enid
Zimmerman, eds. Women Art Educators II.
ED302458 Sullivan, Lisa M. and Sandra M. Bueler.
"A Unit about Women: Write Women Back
128
into History." Curriculum guide sponsored
by Washington State Office of the Super¬
intendent of Public Instruction, Olympia, WA,
1988.
ED391761 "The Powers of,the Feminine. Sacred
Images of India and Southeast Asia." Teacher's
Packet.
EJ455270 Verdino-Sullwold, Carla Maria. "Generous
with Our Uniqueness: Forging New Directions for
African-American Women in the Arts." Crisis 99,
no. 7 (October 1992): 29-30, 32-36.
ED347098 Zimmerman, Enid and Mary Ann
Stankiewicz, eds. Women Art Educators I.
ED379199 Zurmuehlen, Marilyn. Working Papers in
Art Education, Steve Thunder-McGuire and
Marilyn Zurmuehlen, eds., 1993. Number 12.
Sites for Ordering Art Education Resources and
Audio-Visual Material about Women Artists
Crystal Productions Catalog offers videos, poster sets,
timelines, curriculum units, electronic media, and
books focusing on multicultural and women's
ideas, contributions, and images to worldwide
art. Reach them at (800) 255-8629 for a catalog.
Box 2159, Glenview, IL 60025-6159 or [www.
crystalproductions.com]
Crizmac, Art and Cultural Education Materials, Inc.
Catalog offers extensive resource materials for
diversity in art education, including audio visual
resources, teacher lessons, cultural kits, timelines,
and videos. Reach them at 800-913-8555 or
[www.crizmac.com],
Davis Publications, Inc. and Davis Art Images.
Catalogs offer extensive art educational
resources and sets of images of women artists
including women photographers. Call (800)
533-2847 for catalogs or online ordering.
[www.davisart.com].
Resources
Sax Visual Materials Catalog. Texts, slides, videos,
posters, and other resource materials as well as
art supplies are available through this distributor.
Call (800) 558-6696 for catalogs or order.
[www.saxarts.com]
Saskia Art Slides, Ltd. offers a selection of images by
women artists. Available from Scholar's Resource,
Inc. Call (800) 688-3040.
[www.scholarsresource.com]
Universal Color Slides. Catalog offers extensive range
of slides, videos, mini reproductions of ten
women artists, and texts on women artists. Series
of slides on contemporary women artists of color
include African American, Latina American, Asian
Pacific American and Native American women
artists in four separate sets. Call (800) 326-1367
for catalog, [www.universalartimages.com]
Museum of Art and Design (formerly the American
Craft Museum) Slide Packets: The Object as
Vessel, The Object Made for Use, The Object as
Statement, The Object as Personal Adornment,
Political Ceramics: Social Issues and Political
Ceramics: War. Each set contains eighteen images.
Available from Crystal Productions.
Selected Reproductions, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and
Videotapes
Art: 21, Art in the Twentieth Century. A DVD and
online teaching resource that includes documen¬
taries on several contemporary American women
artists. For information and ordering materials,
go to: [www.pbs.org/art 21].
Women Artists. Eighteen separate color poster
images of paintings and sculpture with brief bio¬
graphical captions. Available from Crizmac cata¬
log. Call (800) 913-8555.
Resources
Women Artists. Take-5 Art Prints Series. Five large
poster images of women's art. Includes Judith
Leyster, Kathe Kollwitz, Frida Kahlo, Georgia
O'Keeffe and Helen Frankenthaler. Available from
Sax Catalog. Call (800) 558-6696.
Women Artists of the Americas. Five large reproduc¬
tions and teacher's manual. Multicultural Art Print
Series. Includes Lola Alvarez Bravo, Lois Mailou
Jones, Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, Frida Kahlo,
Marina Nunez del Prado. Getty Education Institute
for the Arts, also available in Sax Catalog.
Women Artists. Large color reproductions of the
art of ten women artists. Shorewood Art Prints.
Available from Sax Catalog.
Women Artists on Disc. Extensive bibliographic
database on women artists. CD-ROM. Thorndike,
ME: G.K. Hall & Co., 2000.
Survey of Women Artists. CD-ROM. National
Museum of Women in the Arts/SRA.
[www.nmwa.org].
Women Artists in the Collection: St. Louis Art
Museum. Slide kit. Available for purchase. Other
kits on quilting, basketry, and decorative arts
available for loan to Missouri teachers for use in
schools. Call (314) 721-0067.
From the Heart: Works by Women. New York:
Museum of Modern Art. Nine contemporary
women artists from the Gihon Collection: Lynda
Benglis, Nancy Chambers, Clyde Connell, Janet
Fish, Hermine Ford, Dorothy Hood, Mary
McCleary, Gail Stack, and Dee Wolff. Videos/DVDs
on Women Who Make Art.
The following is a partial list of women artists who
have had individual videos or DVDs made about
their lives and work. They are available from one or
more of the distributors listed previously:
129
 Emma Amos
Ancient Art of Pottery: Daughters of the Anasazi
Mary Cassatt
Collecting American Folk Art at the Shelbourne
Museum
Frida Kahlo
Betty LaDuke
Dorothea Lange
Maya Lin
Maria Martinez
Louise Nevelson
Georgia O'Keeffe
Howardena Pindell
Faith Ringgold
Betye and Alison Saar
Pablita Velarde
Feminist Histories of Art and of Women Artists
Anscombe, Isabella. A Woman's Touch: Women in
Design from 1860 to the Present Day. New York:
Viking Penguin, 1985.
Bank, Mirra. Anonymous Was a Woman, 2nd ed.,
New York: St. Martin's, 1995.
Barlow, Margaret. Women Artists, Westport, CT:
Hugh, Lanter, Levin, 1999.
Bettelheim, Judith. "Art History Outside the Canon:
Finding an Ethnographic Methodology for
Feminist Art History." Artweek, 21 (1990): 25.
Discusses nonwestern artists.
Borzello, Frances. Seeing Ourselves: Women's Self-
Portraits. New York: Abrams, 1998.
Companeras: Women, Art, and Social Change in
Latin America. San Francisco: City Lights Books,
1985.
Caws, Mary Ann, Rudolph Kuenzli, and Gwen
Raaberg, eds. Surrealism and Women. Boston:
MIT Press, 1991.
Chadwick, Whitney, and Isabelle de Courtivion, eds.
Significant Others: Creativity and Intimate
Partnership. New York: Thames and Hudson,
1993. Explores couples working together or sepa¬
rately in art, such as Sopia and Robert Delaunay.
-. Women, Art, and Society, London: Themes
and Hudson, 3rd ed., 2002. A survey from the
Middle Ages to the present; a good textbook.
Cherry, Deborah. Painting Women: Victorian Women
Artists. London: Routledge, 1993.
Fine, Elsa Honig. Women and Art: A History of
Women Painters and Sculptors from the
Renaissance to the 20th Century. Montclair, NJ:
Rowman & Allanheld Publishers, 1978.
Fister, Patricia. Japanese Women Artists 1600-1900.
Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, 1988.
Garrard, Mary D. Artemesia Gentileschi: The Image
of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Gaze, Delia, ed. Dictionary of Women Artists. 2 vols.
London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1995.
Greer, Germaine. The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of
Women Painters and Their Works. New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979.
Harris, Ann Sutherland, and Linda Nochlin. Women
Artists 1550-1950. New York: Los Angeles County
Museum/Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. One of the first
exhibitions in recent decades dedicated to
women artists.
Henkes, Robert. American Women Painters of the
1930's and 1940's: The Lives and Works of 10
Artists. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1991.
-. The Art of Black American Women: Works of
24 Artists of the 20th Century. Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 1993.
Heller, Nancy G. Women Artists: An Illustrated
History. New York: Abbeville Press, 1987. From the
Renaissance to the present. La Duke, Betty.

130 Resources
 Africa: Through the Eyes of Women Artists.
New Jersey: Africa World Press, Inc., 1991.
Lippard, Lucy R. The Pink Glass Swan: Selected
Feminist Essays on Art. New York: The New Press,
1995.
-. Mixed Blessings, New Art in a Multicultural
America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1990.
Supports the inclusion of artists of color and
their ideas. Reconfigures the contemporary
art scene.
Martin, Elizabeth and Meyer, Vivian. Female Gazes:
Seventy-Five Women Artists. Toronto: Second
Story Press, 1997.
Munro, Eleanor. Originals: American Women Artists.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.
Nemser, Cindy. Art Talk: Conversations with 15
Women Artists, rev. ed. New York: HarperCollins,
1995. \ Women's Art Journal. Joan Marter and Margaret
Robinson, Jontyle Theresa, ed. Bearing Witness:
Contemporary Works by African American
Women Artists. New York: Rizzoli and Spelman
College, 1996.
Rosen, Randy and Catharina Brawer. Making Their
Mark: Women Artists Move into the Mainstream
1970-1985. New York: Abbeville Press, 1989.
Exhibition catalog.
Rosenblum, Naomi. A Flistory of Women Photo¬
graphers. Paris, London, and New York: Abbeville,
1994.
Saslow, James A. Pictures and Passions: A Flistory of
Flomosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York:
Viking Press, 1999.
Slatkin, Wendy. The Voices of Women Artists.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1993.
-. Women Artists in Flistory: From Antiquity to
the 20th Century, 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 2001.
Resources
Trenton, Patricia, ed. Independent Spirits: Women
Painters of the American West 1890-1945.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Tufts, Eleanor. Our Flidden Fleritage: Five Centuries
of Women Artists. New York: Paddington Press,
1974.
Vigue, Jodi. Great Women Masters of Art. New York:
Watson-Guptill, 2003.
Weidner, Marsha, et al. Views From Jade Terrace:
Chinese Women Artists 1300-1912. Indianapolis
and New York: Indianapolis Museum of Art and
Rizzoli, 1988.
Witzling, Mara R., ed. Voicing Our Visions: Writings
by Women Artists. New York: Universe, 1991.
-. Voicing Today's Visions: Writings by
Contemporary Women Artists. New York:
Universe, 1994.
Barlow, co-eds. Editorial offices Rutgers
University, published Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Feminist Art Theory and Criticism
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: BBC and
Penguin Books, 1972. A visual and theoretical
analysis of contemporary attitudes toward art
and gender.
Betterton, Rosemary, ed. Looking On: Images of
Femininity in the Visual Arts and Media. London
and New York: Pandora, 1987.
-. An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the
Body. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
Broude, Norma and Mary Garrard, eds. Feminism
and Art: Questioning the Litany. New York:
Harper and Row, 1982.
-. The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art
Flistory. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
131
 -. Reclaiming Female Agency: Feminist Art
Flistory After Postmodernism. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2005.
These three anthologies by Norma Broude and Mary
Garrard contain articles which trace the develop¬
ment of feminist art history over the past three
decades.
-. The Power of Feminist Art: The American
Movement of the 1970's, Flistory and Impact. New
York: Abrams, 1994. An anthology centered on
feminist art of the 1970s that includes a discus¬
sion of African American, Chicana, Asian, and les¬
bian art.
Chicago, Judy. Through the Flower, Garden City, NY:
Anchor Books, 1977. Chicago recounts her educa¬
tion and experiences in the early feminist years.
Chicago, Judy and Lucie-Smith, Edward. Women and
Art: Contested Territory. London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1999.
Comini, Alessandra. "Art History, Revisionism and
Some Holy Cows." Arts Magazine, June 1980. Her
witty College Art Association convocation address
demanding revision in art history.
Deepwell, Katy, ed. New Feminist Art Criticism.
Manchester and New York: Manchester University
Press, 1995.
Dietrich, Linnea S. and Diane Smith-Hurd. "Feminist
Approaches to the Survey of Art History." Art
Journal 54, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 44-47. This entire
issue is dedicated to the rethinking of the art his¬
tory survey.
Foster, A. "Creating New Curriculum." Forum: A
Women's Studies Periodical 17, no. 1 (Fall 1990):
5-8. Discusses two women's studies classes devel¬
oped at the Art Academy of Cincinnati-Women's
Ways of Seeing: Art and Literature, and Women's
Ways of Seeing: A Gender-based Studio Class.
132
Gouma-Peterson, Thalia and Patricia Mathews. "The
Feminist Critique of Art History." Art Bulletin 69,
no. 3 (Sept. 1987): 326-357. Summarizes the
issues and participants in feminist art history up
to 1987.
Hyde, Sarah. Exhibiting Gender. Manchester and
New York: Manchester University Press, 1997.
Isaak, Jo Anna. Feminism and Contemporary Art: The
Revolutionary Power of Women's Laughter.
London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
Jones, Amelia, ed. Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's
Dinner Party in Feminist Art Flistory. Berkeley/
UCLA at the Armand Hammer Museum:
University of California Press, 1996.
-. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader.
London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
Mainardi, Patricia. "Quilts: The Great American Art."
Feminist Art Journal 2, no. 1 (Winter 1973): 1,
18-23.
Nead, Lynda. The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and
Sexuality. London and New York, Routledge,
1992.
Nicholson, Linda. Feminism/Postmodernism. London
and New York, 1990.
Nochlin, Linda. Women, Art, and Power, and Other
Essays. New York: Harper and Row, 1988. Includes
"Why Have There Been No Great Women
Artists?" and other ground-breaking essays.
-. Representing Women. New York: Thames
and Hudson, 1999.
Pollock, Griselda. Old Mistresses: Women, Art, and
Ideology. New York: Pantheon Books, 1981.
Examines the relationship between women, art,
and ideology and the idea that art history is not
an "objective" discourse.
-. Generations and Geographies in the Visual
Arts. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
Resources
-. Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and
the Writing of Arts' Histories. London and New
York: Routledge, 1999.
Price, Janet and Shildrick, Margaret, eds. Feminist
Theory and the Body: A Reader. London and New
York: Routledge, 1999.
Raven, Arlene, Cassandra L. Langer, and Joanna
Frueh, eds. Feminist Art Criticism. Ann Arbor, Ml:
UMI Research Press, 1988. An anthology contain¬
ing a wide variety of topics, including essays on
women of color and lesbian artists.
Robinson, Hilary, ed. Feminism-Art-Theory: An
Anthology 1968-2000. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
Suleiman, Susan Rubin, ed. The Female Body in
Western Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1985.
Saunders, Gill. The Nude: A New Perspective. New
York: Harper and Row, 1989.
"Teaching about Women and the Visual Arts."
Women's Studies Quarterly 15, Spring/Summer
1987, 1-2.
Theoretical Issues about Gender
and Art Education
Authors' Note: Recent information about the annu¬
ally published Journal of Gender Issues in Art and
Education indicates that a new online journal Visual
Culture and Gender (VCG) will post its inaugural
issue at http://visualculture&gender.net on Septem¬
ber 6, 2006. The purpose of the journal is to encour¬
age and promote an understanding of how visual
culture constructs gender in context with representa¬
tions of race, age, sexuality, social units, and social
class. The significance of visual culture for art educa¬
tion rests not so much in the object or image, but in
the learning and teaching processes or practices used
to expose culturally learned meanings and power
relations that surround the creation, consumption.
Resources
valuing, and dissemination of images. Similarly, the
significance of gender for art education involves
issues of equity and social justice in the learning,
teaching, and practice of art." (Online announce¬
ment quoted from journal editors Karen Kiefer-
Boyd, Pennsylvania State University and Deborah
Smith-Shank, Northern Illinois University.)
Ament, Elizabeth A. "Using Feminist Perspectives in
Art Education." Art Education 51, no. 5 (1998):
56-61.
Barrett, Terry. "Interpreting Visual Culture." Art
Education 56, no. 2 (2003): 6-12.
Blandy, Doug and Kristin G. Congdon, eds. Art in a
Democracy. New York: Teachers College Press,
1987.
Chalmers, F. Graeme. Celebrating Pluralism: Art,
Education, and Cultural Diversity. Occasional
Paper 5. Los Angeles: Getty Education Institute
for the Arts, 1996.
Check, Ed and Laurel Lampela. "Teaching More of
the Story: Sexual and Cultural Diversity in Art and
the Classroom. Advisory. Reston, VA: National Art
Education Association, 1999, Summer.
Check, Ed. "Pink Scissors." Art Education 55, no. 1
(January, 2002): 46-52.
Clark, Roger. Art Education: Issues in Postmodernist
Pedogogy. Reston, VA: National Art Education
Association, 1996.
Clark, Roger and Ashley Folgo. "Who Says There
Have Been Great Women Artists? Some
Afterthoughts." Art Education 59, no. 2 (March
2006): 47-52.
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Resources
137
Appendix
Worksheets her head. "I don't know," she says. "We try, but
somehow we're still not getting to the girls, and
Worksheet One: Thinking about Gender we're going to lose them."
and Learning
Make a list of beliefs about learning and gender
The following quotes are taken from Orenstein's held by this teacher.
book titled School Girls (New York: Doubleday/
Anchor Books, 1995). The first quote comes from a
middle school student. The second is from a class¬
room teacher.

Read the first statement.

Now think about your own interactions with boys
Amy: and girls in your classroom.
"Boys never care if they're wrong. They can say
totally off-the-wall things that have nothing to do Make a list of your personal assumptions about
with class sometimes. They're not afraid to get in learning regarding boys.
trouble or anything. I'm not shy. But it's like, when I
get into class, I just..." She shrugs her shoulders
helplessly. "I just can't talk. I don't know why."

Make a list of beliefs about learning and gender

held by this student.
Make a list of your personal assumptions about
learning regarding girls.

Read the second statement. _

Mrs. Richter: Reflect on any of your beliefs about learning that

"I try to teach them the same. I try to call on them are different relative to girls and boys.
the same. But I know I don't always hold them _
accountable the same way. I let the girls off the _
hook because they get so embarrassed when they're _
wrong. And the boys want control of the class, so _
sometimes they get it. . . ." She trails off, shaking _

Appendix 139
 Worksheet Two: Thinking about Diversity

The following terms describe various facets of

identity:

Gender ---
Ehnicity -—-
Economic/Social Class ---
Physical, Mental, or Emotional Disability __—-
Sexual Orientation -
Age -
Religious Beliefs

Write down your personal beliefs regarding each of What would help increase my comfort level
the facets mentioned above. regarding_

Ask yourself: Do I have any bias toward people

whose facets of identity are different from mine?
Which facets?

140 Appendix
Worksheet Three: Gender and Artistic Value

Set out several "art objects." Include items such as a

framed painting of a war scene and another paint¬
ing that depicts fruit and/or flowers, a quilt, a
mounted sculpture, a ceramic vessel, a photograph,
or other human-made items.

Ask students to rank the objects according to their

artistic worth.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

9
10

Ask students how likely it is that a woman created

each of the art objects.

Make a list of the reasons they give for their choices.

Appendix
141
 Worksheet Four: Thinking about Stereotypes

Locate the following image on the Internet:

Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972.

Is this image an accurate representation of an

African American woman?

What aspects of this assemblage suggest power and

don't fit a stereotypical image?

What stereotypes surface?

142 Appendix
Worksheet Five: Thinking about Mentoring

Mentoring, the intellectual and emotional support

of another as she or he strives toward achieving a
significant goal, has been very important to many
artists throughout history.

Can you think of any famous mentoring relation¬

ships in the field of visual art? Many times, the men¬
tor was a parent.

Reflect on your own history as a mentor. Who have

you mentored?

Some examples of which you may be unaware _

include: Orazio and his daughter, Artemisia _
Gentileschi; Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, and _
many young women artists in the 1970s; Auguste -
Rodin and Camille Claudel; and Adelaide Labille-
Guiard and her pupil, Gabrielle Capet. List five ways you can mentor your students.

1_
Describe your own experience with mentoring. Who
is your mentor? In which area(s) of your life do you ~
have a mentor? What has been the impact of men-
4
toring on your professional teaching career? In your -
artistic career? --

Appendix 143
 Worksheet Six: Classroom Language Which phrases are used most often when praising
and Gender male students?

Make a list of the phrases you frequently use to

praise students' efforts or their finished art works.

List some phrases you might use that pertain to all

students regardless of gender:

Which phrases do you use most often when praising

female students?

144 Appendix
Worksheet Seven: Exploring One's Stereotypes
An interesting activity about stereotyping is found in
McCormick's book, Creating the Nonsexist Classroom,
(pp. 76-78).
Reflective Exercise: Thinking about Stereotypes
Each of the following scenarios has a stereotype
embedded in it. After identifying the stereotype,
respond to the situation by indicating your rating on
a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 being "very comfortable"
and 4 being "very uncomfortable." Analyze your rat¬
ings. There are no right or wrong answers.
1. You are flying to China via a 747 jet. When
airborne, a female voice comes over the inter¬
com, "Hello, this is Mildred Poe, your captain,
speaking)"
2. It is your week to drive the four neighborhood
children and your cousin to child care. Upon
arrival, you discover that two of the three child¬
care aides are male.
3. Your car broke down on the interstate, so you
sent for help. The garage sends a sixty-year-old
female mechanic.
4. A female student with pronounced scars and
burns on her neck, face, and hands explains to
students that she has not yet mastered the art of
using curling rods and combs.
5. In a newspaper article about a young woman
who was wearing shorts and a cut-off T-shirt
when she was raped while jogging, the writer
commented, "She was asking for it."
6. Anna and Emilio were good friends in college.
After graduating with the same grade-point aver¬
age and degree, they both went to work for the
same insurance firm. They have identical jobs,
Appendix
but, unbeknownst to them, Emilio's salary is
10 percent higher than Anna's.
7. Two young children watch an hour of the
Garfield cartoon show. During that hour, the chil¬
dren see three times as many male characters as
female ones.
8. Katrina works at an advertising agency forty
hours a week, and her husband Klaus puts in sim¬
ilar hours each week as an insurance salesperson.
Klaus helps Katrina with the home chores by car¬
rying out the trash and washing dishes.
Research Activity: Follow-Up Thinking
about Stereotypes
In order to counteract stereotyping, teachers need to
understand its roots and to reflect on their own
ingrained attitudes and stereotypic thinking about
different groups.
In small groups of four people, discuss and ana¬
lyze your responses to the eight scenarios above. Is
there agreement or disagreement on the stereotypes
embedded in each one? Have you ever come face to
face with such stereotypes? What is the source of
your discomfort with specific scenarios? What are
some plausible alternatives for various reactions?
As a group or individually, generate responses to
the following questions:
1. What are five stereotypes about each gender?
About gays and lesbians? About African
American women? About Mexican American
women? About sexually abused women?
2. Is there any rational basis for the stereotypes you
identified? If so, justify your position on this
issue; if not, explain why you think you have
those stereotypes.
145
 3. Do you agree or disagree with a person who says
stereotypes correctly provide group norms?
Explain your answer.
4. Discuss the statement, "All stereotypes are incor¬
rect and harmful because by definition they
diminish individuality and diversity."
5. "Stereotypes that express favorable attitudes are
not harmful." Do you agree or disagree with this
statement?
6. What can be done to eliminate these stereo¬
types? Would you confront a teacher in the
teachers' lounge who was heard expressing a
generalization that was not factual about Asian
American girls, African American girls, or some
other group?

Do some brainstorming with the group to arrive at

several "best possible" actions to take in each of the
following settings to eradicate sex-role and racial
stereotyping: home, school, and workplace.

146 Appendix
Worksheet Eight: Women in the Curriculum 4

Make a list of women artists who regularly appear in _

your curriculum. What type or genre of art do they £
create?

Artist: Genre: £

10

List below ten women artists you would like to add

to your curriculum. See pp. 123 and 124 for a list of
two hundred artists from which to choose. Or refer
to Davis texts by A. Remer, Pioneering Spirits and
Enduring Visions: Women's Artistic Heritage Around
the World.

Artist: Genre:
1

Appendix
147
Index
A Aulenti, Gae, 94
Abakanowicz, Magdalena, 67, 107, 108, 109, 111 awareness of women artists, 30, 94, 97, 99, 102, 107
Abbott, S. S. Berenice, 67 Aycock, Alice, 62
Adams, Abigail, 98
Adams, John, 98 B
Adams, John Quincy, 98 Baca, Judy, 103, 104
advantages held by male artists, 33-34 Baez, Joan, 105
aggression and gender, 9 Banks, Cherry A. Magee, 24, 121
and dominance, 8 Banks, James, 20-21, 24, 121
Anguissola, Sofonisba, 33, 35, 41 Barrett, Terry, 75, 89
approaches to multiculturalism, 20-21, 119 Bell, Susan, 75
additive, 21 Benton, Thomas Hart, 50
contributions, 21 Berdache, 15
social action, 21 Berger, John, 49
transformation, 21 Bernard, Malcolm, 55
approaches to gender equity, 19-20 Biklin, Sari Knopp, 121
comparing, 118-119 Blandy, Doug, 75
integrationist, 19 Bonheur, Rosa, 63, 69, 75
parallels with approaches to multiculturalism, 21 Borchers, Karen, 85
pluralist, 20 Botticelli, Sandro, 37
separatist, 19 Boyer, Ernest L., 25, 70, 75
social action, 20 boys
archetypes and stereotypes in art and art education, expectations of, 2-3, 4, 7, 8-9
44-48, 72 socialization of, 2-3
architecture, 93-96 treatment of in the classroom, 4-5, 7, 8, 10
women in, 94 Bravo, Lola Alvarez, 71
architecture schools, American, 35 Brewer, Thomas M., 11
Aristotle, 5 Brooks, Romaine, 63
art academies and women, 34-36 Broude, Norma, 55, 69, 75
art and universal values, 39-40 Brown, Denise Scott, 94
art deemed worth studying, 28-29 Burke, Selma, 62
art, defining it broadly, 21-23, 58-60 Bye, Arthur, 19
art, how it shapes our views of gender, 43-55
art vs. craft, 36-39 C
Asher, Rikki, 75 canons, art and educational, 20
assessment and gender issues, 95, 96, 101, 105, 106, approaches to critique, 61
109, 110 Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi, 63

149
Index
 Carr, Emily, 62 formal, explicit, or written, 17, 58
Carracci, Annibale, 50 hidden) 17, 18, 58
case studies, 91-111 null, 17, 18
unit 1 (grades K-3), 93-96 thematic issues in, 70 '
unit 2 (grades 4-6), 96-101 transforming to foster gender equity, 57-75
unit 3 (grades 7-9), 101-106 universal themes as starting points for planning,
unit 4 (grades 10-12), 106-110 70-71
Cassatt, Mary, 32, 62, 65, 67, 80 Creation of Adam from the Sistine Ceiling, 32-33
Catlett, Elizabeth, 67
Chadwick, Whitney, 41 D
Chalmers, F. Graeme, 75 Day, Gary, 25, 111
Chaplin, Sarah, 44, 55 Degler, Carl, 5
Chapman, Anne, 24 Demuth, Charles, 63
Chapman, Tracy, 105 differential treatment of girls and boys, 2-3
Check, Ed, 63, 75 discipline-based (DBAE) or comprehensive approach
Chicago, Judy, 20, 30, 41, 66, 75, 86, 103-104 to art education, 21-23
The Dinner Party, 66 Dehner, Dorothy, 22, 23
classroom environment, importance of, 83-85 Delaunay, Robert, 60, 88
for promoting gender equity, 84 De Pisan, Christine, 57, 75
for promoting safety for all students, 84-85 designing instructional activities to address gender
Claudel, Camille, 88, 107, 108, 109, 111 equity, 85-88
Close, Chuck, 100 Dobbs, Stephen Mark, 75
cognitive and perceptual skills, differences in, Domenichino, 50
9-10 double standard for women in art, 35
Colescott, Robert, 87, 100 Doyle, James A., 11, 15, 24
Collins, Georgia, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 79, 89, 115, 117, Drew, Jane, 94
121 Dylan, Bob, 105
Congdon, Kristin, 25, 64, 75
Constantinople, Anne, 15 E
context: factors that shape artistic expression, 22-23, Eames, Charles, 94
39-40 Eames, Rae, 94
Copley, John Singleton, 96 Edelsen, Mary Beth, 86
Courtauld, Louisa, 58 Eisner, Elliot, 18, 24
curriculum, aspects of, 17-18 Erickson, Mary, 75
comparing approaches for equity and diversity, Erlebacher, Martha, 64
118-119 Euripides, 98
evaded, 18 Eve as female archetype, 45-46

150 Index
F language bias and, 32
female artists (see also women artists) lenses, 73
discrimination against, 23 past and present in the K-12 artroom, 21-23
femininity, 1-7 sexual orientation and, 14-16, 61-63
feminist art critics and historians, 66 shaping of, by art and visual culture, 43-55
feminist perspectives in art criticism, 65 socialization, 1-4
Fine, Elsa Honig, 60 stereotypes, and teaching, 4
Flack, Audrey, 23, 100 in society, 13-14
Flannery, Kathleen A., 11 studies and art education, 10
formalist approach to art education, limiting scope understanding, in society, schools, and artroom,
of, 23 1-11
Frank, Anne, 105 views of, and how they affect art students, 13-25
Freccero, Carla, 55 "gender" vs. "sex," 3-4
Freedman, Kerry, 25, 55 Gentileschi, Artemesia, 51
Freud, Sigmund, 5-6 Gillespie, Michael, 24, 111
Fuller, Meta Warrick, 62 Gilpin, Laura, 62, 63
\ girls
G expectations of, 2-3, 4, 7, 8-9
Garrard, Mary D., 55, 69, 75 opportunities for leadership, 93, 95
Garza, Carmen Lomas, 103, 104, 120 socialization of, 2-3
Gaudelius, Yvonne, 75 treatment of in the classroom, 4-5, 7, 8, 10
gender Grant, Carl, 20, 24
affecting artistic expression, 65 Gray, Eileen, 94
affecting views of art and artists, 28-29 Green, Maxine, 113, 121
assumptions and misconceptions about, 5-7 Grien, Hans Baldung, 46
bias in art criticism, 52, 53 Guerrilla Girls, 29, 31, 41, 73
biases in art instruction and, 30-33
biases related to media type, 36-39 H
constructing, 20 Hadid, Zaha, 94
curriculum in the art classroom and, 17-18 Hals, Frans, 99
differences according to research, 7-10 Hamblen, Karen, 24
equity, approaches to, in the artroom, 17-21 Haring, Keith, 63
equity in the ideal art classroom, 113-120 Hedges, Elaine, 36, 49
expectations, 2-7 Heller, Nancy, 41
in the media, 44 "high" vs. "low" art, 60-61
issues in art and visual culture, 27-41 Hoch, Hannah, 67
issues in the art classroom, 14-19, 21-23 Hockney, David, 63

Index
151
 Horney, Karen, 6
Howells, Richard, 55 Lamoe, Julie, 23
Hutchens, James, 75 Lampela, Laura, 63, 75
Huxtable, Ada Louise, 94 Layton, Elizabeth, 62
Le Corbusier, 94
I leadership promoting gender equity, 80
ideal art classroom, gender equity in, 113-121 Leonhard, Emma Mae, 38
actions teachers can take, 115 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 49
benefits of, 120 Leyster, Judith, 97, 99, 101
creating and maintaining an equitable Lin, Maya, 94
environment, 115-116 Lippard, Lucy, 31, 65, 71
selecting meaningful concepts for student Lips, Hilary M., 1, 10, 11
exploration, 117, 120 Liu, Hung, 62
images, role played in shaping understanding Loeb, Judy, 19, 60
of gender and sexual identity, 30, 44-48, 72 Lopez, Yolanda, 103, 104
instructional activities addressing issues of gender Lorenz, Clare, 41
equity, 85-88 Los Lobos, 105
action exercises, 86-87 Lucie-Smith, Edward, 64, 66
collaborative research suggestions, 87-88
reflective exercises, 85-86 M
integrationist approach to gender equity, 19 Maccoby, Eleanor, 9, 11
Macintosh, Charles Rennie, 94
J-K Madonna as female archetype, 45-46
Jacklin, Carol, 9, 11 Mainardi, Patricia, 37, 41, 61
Johns, Jasper, 88 male artists
Jones, Amelia, 75 advantages of, 34
Jonson, Ben, 98 and "greatness," 31
Jorgensen, Linda, 111 predominance in textbooks, 29-31
Kahlo, Frida, 88, 100 assumption of their perspective as universal,
Kandinsky, Wassily, 88 39-40, 48-51
Kauffmann, Angelica, 34, 46 male "gaze" of viewer, 50, 63, 107
Kelly, Mary, 20 Manet, Edouard 86
Kollwitz, Kathe, 64, 102, 103 Manriquez, David, 111, 116, 120, 121
Krasner, Lee , 53, 55, 88 Marley, Bob, 105
Kruger, Barbara, 49, 67, 87 Martinez, Maria, 67
masculinity, 1-7

152 Index
McCormick, Theresa Mickey, 18, 24, 78, 117, 121 O'Keeffe, Georgia, 53, 62, 88, 102, 103
McDonald, Frances, 94 O'Kelly, Mattie Lou, 62
McDonald, Margaret, 94 Orenstein, Peggy, 7, 82, 89
media archetypes and stereotypes, 44
Michelangelo, 31-33, 36, 63 P-Q
Middle Ages, 5 Parks, Rosa, 105
misconceptions about gender differences Peale, Charles Willson, 99
females as inferior males, 5-6 Peale, Anna Claypoole, 99, 10
males and females as opposites, 6-7 Peale, James, 97
Modersohn-Becker, Paula, 63 Peale, Sarah Miriam, 97, 99
Morgan, Julia, 94 Perlinghieri, Sandra, 41
Morisot, Berthe, 62 Perrotti, Jeff, 89
Morisot, Edma, 62 personal identity and artistic expression, 64
Moser, Mary, 34, 46 personal relationships of boys vs. girls, 8
Moses, Grandma, 102, 103 Petrovich-Mwaniki, Lois, 71, 75
multiculturalism, 20-21, 71-72 physiological differences, 9
Munch, Edvard, 40 Piazza, Carolyn, 73
Munsen, Gretchen T., 55 Piercy, Marge, 36
Munter, Gabriel, 88 pluralist approach to gender equity, 20
Pollard, Diane, 121
N Pollock, Jackson, 88
Native American culture, gender in, 15 Pollock, Mrs. Jackson, 53
nature vs. culture, 49 Pollock, William, 11
Nebraska Prairie Visions Project, 24, 111 portraiture and women, 97, 99
Neel, Alice, 67 preference for boys, 3
Nemser, Cindy, 19, 23 prejudice, 4
Nochlin, Linda, 27, 31, 41, 66 promoting individual achievement, 23
nonsexist classroom, characteristics of, 117 quantitative ability, 9
nudes, 33, 45, 63, 67 quilts as art, 38-39
women denied access to study, 32-35
nurturing environment, creating, 83-85 R
Rauschenberg, Robert, 63, 88
O Rembrandt, 50
obstacles faced by female artists, 34-36 Remer, Abby, 75
Odetta, 105 Renaissance, 6, 32, 34, 37
Odundo, Magdalene, 106-108, 109, 111 resources for promoting gender equity, 122-137

153
Index
 Rickey, Carrie, 66 Smith, Jaune Quick-to-See, 62

Ringgold, Faith, 50, 62 Smith-Shank, Deborah, 25

%

rites of passage, 8 social action approach to gender equality, 20

Rivera, Diego, 88, 104 social behavior, gender differences in, 8-9

Rodin, Auguste, 88, 107 social commentary by women artists, 102-105

Ronstadt, Linda, 105 socialization, 2

Rosenberg, Martin, 25, 111 socially aware and comprehensive approach to art

Rosetti, Christina, 49 education, 21-22

Royal Academy, 34, 46 Sowell, Joanne, 24, 111
Rubens, Peter Paul, 50 spatial ability, 9
Ruysch, Rachel, 53 Stanzione, Massimo, 50, 51
Steirs, Pat, 75
S stereotype, feminine, reinforced by art and imagery,
Saar, Bettye, 62, 87 52-53
Sacca, Elizabeth J., 75 Stewart, Marilyn, 75, 89
Sadker, David, 11, 17, 21, 79, 89 Stevens, May, 20, 100
Sadker, Myra, 11, 17, 21, 79, 89 Stieglitz, Alfred, 88
safe classroom, 84-85 Stuart, Gilbert, 97
Salkind, Leni, 11 Stuhr, Patricia L., 71, 75
Salkind, Neil J., 11 student behaviors promoting gender equity, 82-83
Sandell, Renee, 11, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 79, 89, 115, Suggs, Marianne, 75
117, 121 Sully, Thomas, 97
Sapiro, Virginia, 41, 44, 55 supporting gender-equitable climate in classroom,
Saslow, James, 69, 75 77- 89
Saunders, Gill, 55 creating a nurturing environment, 83-85
Saunders, Robert J., 75 designing instructional activities, 85-88
Seager, Joni, 3 teaching behaviors, 78-83
Schapiro, Miriam, 48-49, 55, 67, 86 Susanna, biblical story of, 50-51, 64
Schmitz, Caroline, 111 survey texts, galleries, and faculty, female represen¬
sexism, 4 tation, 28-29
sexual orientation and gender, 14-16
"sex" vs. "gender," 3-4 T
Sherman, Ann, 115, 121 teaching behaviors that enhance gender equity,
Shimomura, Roger, 87 78- 83
Sistine Chapel, 31-33 technology and gender equity, impact on, 16-17
Sleeter, Christine, 20, 24, 117, 119, 121 Terk-Delaunay, Sonia, 60, 67, 88
Sleigh, Sylvia, 100 Tetrault, Mary Kay Thompson, 117, 118, 121

154 Index
Thurber, Frances, 24, 75, 89, 111 visual culture, 21, 27, 30, 43
transforming curriculum to foster gender equity, art education and, 44
57-75 in curriculum, 39
consider gender within multiculturalism context,
71-72 W
critique canon of art, 59-61 women's contributions to, 59
define art broadly, 58-59 Wagner, Anne M., 55
explore issues of context that shape content, Walker, John A., 44, 55
66-67 Walker, Sydney R., 75
highlight gender through art criticism and history, Warashina, Patty, 62
65-66 Warhol, Andy, 63, 100
rethink curriculum approaches, 67-70 Wasson, Robyn F., 71, 75
show multiple perspectives, 61-65 Watson, Malcolm W., 11
study stereotypes and archetypes, 72-74 Weems, Carrie Mae, 71
Weinert, Linda, 111
U-V Wendt, Ingrid, 36, 49
understanding gender, in society, schools, and art- Westheimer, Kim, 89
room, 1-11 Wilson, Brent, 24
assumptions and misconceptions, 5-7 witches as negative female archetype, 45-46
gender differences, 7-10 women
gender expectations, 2-5 appearance in art and visual culture, 29-30, 45-47
University of Michigan, admission of women, 5 impact of social roles, 35-36, 97-98
Valadon, Suzanne, 40 women artists
Venturi, Robert, 94 concept of greatness and, 31-32, 37
verbal ability, 9 disadvantages faced by, 29, 32-36
views of gender and how they affect art students, knowledge of by art teachers, 30-31
13-25 lists of, 62, 123-124
approaches to gender equity in the classroom, response to human form, 106-108
19- 20 social roles of, 35-38
curriculum and gender in the classroom, 17-18 women as art critics and art historians, 65-67
gender in the classroom, past and present, 21-23 women portrait artists, 99, 100
gender issues in the classroom, 14-17 Young, Bernard, 75
individual achievement with gender equity, 23
parallels found in multiculturism approaches, Z
20 21
- Zapata, Emiliano, 104
Vigee-Lebrun, Elisabeth-Louise, 54-55 Zimmerman, Enid, 20, 24, 75, 117
Virginia Slims advertising, 55 Zoffany, Johann, 34, 46

Index 155
 MARYGROUE COLLEGE

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Art Education in Practice

The Art Education in Practice series provides working art educators with accessible

guides to significant issues in the field. Developments in the field of art education are

consolidated into a clear presentation of what a practicing teacher needs to know.

Each title in this series delivers sensible solutions, transforming research and theory

into tangible classroom strategies. Paramount to the series is the concept of informed

practice, whereby important and often complex art education topics are put into the

context of the working art teacher and real classroom environments.

ISBN 0-fi71‘E-74S-4