{"id":5295,"date":"2025-03-05T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/?p=5295"},"modified":"2025-02-28T17:31:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T17:31:54","slug":"the-art-of-exclusion-unveiling-the-gaps-in-the-art-of-empowerment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/opine\/2025\/03\/05\/the-art-of-exclusion-unveiling-the-gaps-in-the-art-of-empowerment\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of exclusion: Unveiling the gaps in “The Art of Empowerment”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was recently lucky enough to attend the Aberdeen Art Gallery to explore \u2018The Art of Empowerment\u2019 exhibition designed to explore the fight for women’s rights, and the work achieved over the last 100 years to empower women. In truth, however, the exhibition is a display of white-upper class women of the last 100 years, completely disregarding intersectional feminism and the truth of the fight for suffrage, while also ignoring notions of colonial history so prevalently obvious in the exhibition.<\/span><\/p>\n

My first concern when viewing the \u2018Art of Empowerment\u2019 comes from the more general display and lay out of this room. When one enters the rooms, they are greeted by a centre-piece of \u2026 wait for it \u2026 women\u2019s dresses – rather than the (at most) 1000 word educational piece on women’s suffrage and fight for the vote for the women (which doesn\u2019t highlight that it was the vote for <\/span>some<\/span><\/i>\u00a0women).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My two issues with dresses being the centre of the room is firstly, that the notion of clothing as the most important piece in a room about women empowerment reduces women to the clothing they wore at the time. There is no part of \u2018empowerment\u2019 that has ever meant we need to explore the way a woman would dress, and placing dresses worn by upper-class white women at the time of the 1920\u2019s suffrage movement, holds no relevance to the fight for women’s rights.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Secondly, the dresses had a list of materials next to them, telling the viewer what they are made of. There was notably a lot of cotton exported from India, with no reference to the colonial legacy of the cotton trade, or India under the British empire at this time. The treatment of women in India at this time, would have been miles away from the experiences of those in Britain; and, to speak to a wider audience, I think it’s important to address and recognise the colonial ties. The work of feminism is a fight for all women; not just those of the global North. Displaying what women would have worn at the time, without addressing the impact that colonial legacy has still to this day on women, reinforces a hierarchical nature of whose voices are listened to, and which are ignored.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For those who aren\u2019t aware, Aberdeen is the second most diverse city in Scotland, with Glasgow being first; so representation of cultures, language, nationality, religion of ethnic minorities is important; particularly considering the Aberdeen Art Gallery is designed to be accommodating to young children. We live in dangerous times where anti-gender movements are on the rise, and more and more we see the spread of misinformation not only on social media, but by politicians globally. Just last week JD Vance launched an attack on Scotland for promoting \u201cthought crime\u201d, in relation to buffer-zones at abortion clinics, a statement that is just not true.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A vital way to combat this is through education, which Aberdeen Art Gallery have attempted to do. However, as we began to look at the collection and the representation of women, all paintings were of white upper-class females. Alongside the rise of anti-gender movements, we also are still suffering the effects of the cost of living crisis. Women are disproportionately affected by poverty, due to childcare and domestic expectations; therefore the majority of women in this country live in poverty.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is difficult to promote something as \u2018empowering\u2019 when only one race and class of women is being \u2018empowered\u2019,<\/span> moreover, white upper-class women have long been empowered, and long been treated as \u2018better\u2019 more \u2018purer\u2019 women, than all other women. The white-washing of the history of feminism has long been a point of contention for feminists and feminist scholars alike, and as a white female I will never understand the struggles of a female of any other race, however, it is important we recognise these privileges and disparities for women and highlight them to others where we can.<\/span><\/p>\n

Women worldwide are still affected by a colonial legacy, and it is important not to repackage that into \u2018empowerment\u2019 or \u2018women’s studies\u2019. We must amplify the voices of those who have not been heard, and listen and learn from them. The intersectional feminist movement aspires to do that recognising that although all women face some of the same issues, a white women does not fear racism as well as sexism, an able-bodied women does not fear ableism as well as sexism, a hetrosexual women does not fear homophobia as well as sexism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A final point of the Aberdeen Art Gallery that stood out to me was all the portrait paintings in the room were done by men. When we think of a hetero-normative society, it is framed through the lenses of a male gaze, meaning ultimately, what men want to see is what men get to see. A<\/span>s women, our simple being is something that is both sexualised and scrutinised by men<\/span>; an unattainable standard is held for us leaving us always needing to perform. In order to challenge tropes of the male gaze, we must again allow ourselves to view the world the way that women depict other women. Art is a great place to start with this, allowing artists or recreations that are done by women or queer artists opens up a new lens, and ultimately shows women in a raw, more true form.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are many who will see the art of empowerment exhibition as a great step for women and a representation of historical events that led to the liberation of women, however I do not believe we can liberate one \u2018type\u2019 of women, without liberating all women. I feel we must continue to push for representation of all women, and the true history of the women rights movement.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recently lucky enough to attend the Aberdeen Art Gallery to explore \u2018The Art of Empowerment\u2019 exhibition designed to explore the fight for women’s rights, and the work achieved over the last 100 years to empower women. In truth, however, the exhibition is a display of white-upper class women of the last 100 years, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":5296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":58,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[254,1092,1091,724,1093,1095,177,1094,1007],"wf_post_folders":[337],"class_list":{"0":"post-5295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-opine","8":"tag-aberdeen","9":"tag-aberdeen-art-gallery","10":"tag-art","11":"tag-colonialism","12":"tag-diversity","13":"tag-empowerment","14":"tag-feminism","15":"tag-intersectionality","16":"tag-representation"},"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Beth Templeton","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/beth\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pexels-michelacm-3713493-200x300.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Opine<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Opine<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Aberdeen<\/a>","Aberdeen Art Gallery<\/a>","art<\/a>","colonialism<\/a>","diversity<\/a>","empowerment<\/a>","feminism<\/a>","intersectionality<\/a>","representation<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Aberdeen<\/span>","Aberdeen Art Gallery<\/span>","art<\/span>","colonialism<\/span>","diversity<\/span>","empowerment<\/span>","feminism<\/span>","intersectionality<\/span>","representation<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 1 year ago","modified":"Updated 1 year ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 5 March 2025","modified":"Updated on 28 February 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 5 March 2025 10:00","modified":"Updated on 28 February 2025 17:31"},"featured_img_caption":"Photo by Michel Caicedo via Pexels","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5297,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5295\/revisions\/5297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5295"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=5295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}