For my final blog post of this quarter, I wanted to dive a little deeper into a topic that the course has touched on a few times throughout the last ten weeks. Coming into this class, I knew little to none about the traditional gender roles within the Chicanx culture. I have learned how many Chicana artists challenged the traditional gender roles (submission, domesticity, lower-paying/less-committed work to be able to take care of the home and children) through various art pieces that made political statements. In Gloria Anzaldua's "Border Arte" reading, she notes multiple pieces that empower women, from Yolanda Lopez's Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe to Marsha Gomez's This Mother Ain't for Sale, which touches on the "cultural rebirth" of Chicanas rejecting oppressive gender roles.
I also thought it was appropriate to discuss this topic as today is International Women's Day. Something that I have always appreciated throughout this course is the dominance of female authors and artists that we have studied. In so many classes that I have taken while an undergraduate college student, many syllabi have a majority male authors/pieces to be studied, and I find it so empowering that this class strays from that tradition. Especially since we are studying art, a field that is so male-dominated. I find it so important to study women's work, to empower and bring attention to women's work. During this course, we have studied the biographies of some Chicana artists, their stories, their strengths, inspirations, families, greatest achievements. There have been assignments where we dove deep into the challenges of some female artists, which I want to emphasize in this final blog post. More courses should incorporate a greater number of women authors and creators and I am so grateful to have taken a class that makes women feel so recognized and appreciated.
Good work Lily! I completely agree reading the works in this course from Chicana artist have given me words to define the gender inequalities that I have seen within my Salvadorean family for so long. When we examined Chicana artist interpretations of the iconic Virgin de Guadalupe, I was so moved by the strength of everyday women these artists portrayed in La Virgin. I also agree that most of the curriculum I have experienced at UCLA has been centered around the male P.O.V. As a sociology major, much of the theories we learn about are created by old white men and do not connect with me on a personal level. This class was a breath of fresh air in terms of centering the P.O.V on female Chicana artists.
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