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gorillagirlsJennySchneider

I have been curious about the Guerilla Girls for quite some time now, but I never had the opportunity to listen to them speak. I had seen their "advantages of being a woman artist," in an art history book, ironically, and thought it was very funny. However, I had no idea what to expect so I went into the experience with an open mind. I would consider myself a feminist, and especially in terms of the inner workings of the art world. Someday, these things are going to impact me either directly or indirectly. I would hate to get denied a show in a gallery just because they didn't want to show woman artists.
As far as their presentation was concerned, I thought the most powerful and blatant segment was the one in which they showed the dolls portraying the stereotype of women. I thought that it definetely related to CPS, in that they were using this recognizable form but speaking of it in terms of something else. The dolls represented real people that exist in the world and in the minds of the public. When I think of a barbie doll, I think of something unrealistic and almost overly pleasing and too perfect. These dolls were far from it, simply because of the names given to them. For example, Susan, the woman who only goes after black men. Everyone knows that type of person and is familair with that stereotype. Same goes for the Jewish American princess and so on. I was very struck by how strong of a visual those dolls were, and most of the people probably would have been able to guess which stereotype was which just by looking at those dolls. To me, that demonstrates the extreme power that stereotypes have, in that we can see them even when the person in question in even real, as in a plastic doll. In a very weird way, that segment was a lot like the snack label project, in that they were recognizable objects as barbies, but they were clearly not the traditional barbie doll. The fact that you were able to perceive those stereotypes from an image and not the behavior of a person, was pretty amazing. It just shows how wired we are towards visuals and labels of different types of people, not only women. I think that this kind of labeling is the most detrimental type, because you are basing assumptions based on only what you are seeing, in the case of that segment. Usually, in my opinion, you base your schemas for labeling someone this, or that, based on their behavior and how they act. For example, seeing a teenage girl in a catholic schoolgirl uniform was enough to get the " innocent but not so innocent catholic schoolgirl." This label was pulled from that image, not from viewing a short film about how this girl behaves or how she interacts with others.
To me, the Guerilla Girls further cemented the ideas that I have about the strength of schemas that we use every single day, to the point that we don't even think about how we know that stereotype. It's like thinking "why did I just refer to her as a soccer mom? Is it just because she has kids and drives a van?" It's instant and automatic, and that not only connects to CPS but in every aspect of our visual lives.

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