Criticizing the class and color blindness of traditional white feminism, Chicana feminism identified in its concerns over class and color in addition to gender. However, Chicana artists who explores Chicana feminism is marginalized by their male counterparts: these Chicana artists who bravely destroy the stereotype that Chicano men assigned to them were accused of being “anti-family, anti-culture, anti-man and therefore anti-Chicano”.
Artists, like Barbara Carrasco, speak up for the whole Chicana community by depicting the struggles they encounter as female minorities. In her “pregnant woman in a ball of Yarn”, she shows the constrains imposed on women. While being independent is a crucial step for women to escape the control of men, women - given the ability to give birth - is also constrained by this ability. Good women are expected to give birth to many babies and have to take the full responsibilities to take care of the babies. And women who disobey the expectations are working against the nature. In Barbara Carrasco’s point of view, this ability also becomes the cause of all struggles.
However, these works portraying female struggle might not be as well received as works celebrates the female identity. It is indeed that females - with obligations to be good mothers, good wives and good daughters - undergo a lot of hardships. But portraying these struggles will only make female audiences feel more pessimistic on these issues, blaming on their uniqueness as the cause of all suffering. Female portrayed in arts need to be more self-affirming. Are there any self-affirming feminist pieces exhibited in CARA and what’s the audiences reactions to them?
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