When Art Benefits Women’s Rights
While thousands and thousands of American women protest against the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, creatives are using their talents to speak out. More than 40 female Los Angeles-based artists answered a call to action, with the aim to create posters as a visual protest in support of reproductive rights. The works are now up for online auction.
Titled Impact: L.A. for Choice 2022, it is a contemporary art auction benefiting Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP). Co-hosted by Anat Ebgi Gallery and Artsy, the total amount of proceeds from this initiative will be donated to WRRAP.
Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project is the largest national, independent, nonprofit abortion fund. They provide urgently-needed financial assistance nationwide to individuals seeking abortion services or emergency contraception. WRRAP ensures that financially-disadvantaged individuals of all ages, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, gender identities, and sexual orientations can access abortion care and emergency contraception. They provide funding for both medical and surgical procedures.
It takes courage to broach the subject of abortion in your work, but for some artists, it has been a matter of urgency and survival. This action is therefore a clear example of how art can (and does) promote women’s rights. Not only because the proceeds will be donated to non-profit abortion funds but also because it showcases women’s current struggles in society.
This is what is at the core of the feminist art movement. The term refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists to produce art that reflects women's lives and experiences, visualising the inner thoughts and objectives of the feminist movement and showing them to everyone through art pieces. Evolving side-by-side with the feminism as a whole, the movement began in the 1960s and flourished throughout the 1970s as an offshoot of the so-called second wave of feminism.
And so, art started to be a powerful medium able to communicate women’s points of view, their socio-political status, their lives and personal experiences to the world. It also began showing a woman’s body in a different light, a perspective driven by women themselves. The goal was, and still is, to create change by inspiring new generations of young female artists and fighters for women's rights, giving them a vision of a better future for which, I hope, we won’t have to fight much longer.
Credit main image: Brea Weinreb on Artsy.com
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