What Women Want

What do women want? Political, economic, social, and cultural equality. This year, 2020, marks the 100-year anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States and the amendment that granted women the right to vote. A monumental moment in history, the amendment was the first critical step towards prohibiting gender discrimination in voting. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 afforded these same opportunities to black women. The act was amended in 1975, further extending voting rights to all women, regardless of ethnicity or cultural background.

Over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, a range of women’s movements have evolved that speak to the complexities and diverse experiences that construct the female agenda, building on the notion the “personal is political.” Artists have often favored photography as an effective medium to record and redefine women’s history. Some photographers further challenge gender conventions by turning the camera on themselves as a statement of power. In doing so, women are no longer the object of the composition but rather, become the subject.

This exhibition, drawn from the Cornell Fine Arts Museum’s Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, features self-portraits by artists Carrie Mae Weems, Shirin Neshat, Zanele Muholi, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Dana Hoey. These artists engage deeply with history and the present to disrupt the established gender norms and construct new definitions of women in society. This exhibition is organized by the Cornell Fine Arts Museum.