Issues of racism and sexism

Racism and sexism are issues that are present throughout world history, art, and society. Males, galleries, and art collectors frequently overtly overlook the innovation of women and undervalue their contributions throughout most of ancient history. Gender equality is not a new phenomena; it emerged in the eighteenth century, a time when women received less favorable treatment and were shut out of many professions, including those involving politics, education, and the public sector (Currie 92). Therefore, calls for gender equality are not an anti-male campaign but rather an intellectual, economic, social, and political history of the relationship between women and men as it transitioned. There are a number of events in history that negatively impacted on the lives of the populations and needed female contributions to help salvage the situation (Currie 97). The implications of these events have resulted into calls to increase and consequent increase in number of women in several sectors of the modern economy, society and politics, that in the US 1870 Census, there women in mines, oil wells and refineries, gas works, steel works, law, medicine and healthcare and other areas that helped build alloy of the countries and throughout the globe. These acceptances into jobs were bolstered by the aftermaths of wars, unemployment among men, poverty and the need to assist the families that were in dire situations.

During the great depression, women all over the world felt the pressures as it became harder to deal with food, medical care and clothing shortages and problems as housewives. These events resulted in reduced birthrates, and in some countries such as in Canada, women defied Catholic Church teachings and used contraceptives to help save families in times of financial shortfalls. Since layoffs in the white collar jobs were less as compared to light manufacturing industries, women on these areas extended their efforts in vegetable gardens, raising poultry and eggs and helped produce as much food as was possible. Their efforts were very significant in Europe and America. African-American women in the US quilt makers increased their efforts, promoting collaborations and training neophytes, that provided inexpensive solutions in times of financial desperation and helped increase social interaction and camaraderie (Satrapi 31).

In history, women as housewives have in modern cities have helped handle financial and resource shortages in poor families by approaching cheap foods as soups horse meats, beans, noodles and sandwiches. They even sewed and patched clothing, and engaged in trade, worked outside their homes, did laundry for cash, and extended their help to extended families in similar situations.

In Germany, the need to sustain the coming war needed the contribution of women to reshape household consumption to achieve self-sufficiency. The Nazi women organization, authorities and other propaganda agencies made tremendous contribution in their investment in using promoting social values of thrift and healthy living among housewives (Satrapi 26).

Traditional studies have minimized and ignored women’s contributions and the many undocumented positive effects they had on societal development. Scholarships in future should aim at promoting women. It’s imperative to learn more of the contributions of the foremothers since they were blatantly ignored because history was written by men and about men’s activities (Guerrilla Girls 4). There is need to detach women from mainstream print portrayals as mothers, daughters and housewives and their contributions in war, administration, diplomacy and politics recognized by race, economic status and other aspects and printed.

The wisecracking and cleverly contribution of the guerilla girls book of the bedside companions of the western arts have contributed to the establishment of women’s position not bonly in arts, but to the wider topic and contributed to the fading perspective of stereotypically viewing women as sex objects in film, music and fashion industries and in print where female artistes were treated and ignored merely on the bases of their sex.



Works cited

Currie, Janus C. "Like a Prayer: The Dissensual Aesthetics of Pussy Riot." Rock Music Studies 4.2 (2017): 89-101.

Guerrilla Girls (Group of artists). The Guerrilla Girls' bedside companion to the history of Western art. Penguin Group USA, 1998.

Satrapi, Marjane. The complete persepolis. New York: Pantheon Books, 2007.