Sketchy Doodle Ideas

“beauty that chooses to ignore the fact that women bleed, that they age, give birth, change and die”

-Jacki Willson , Being Gorgeous.

Something really clicked with me about this quote as it brings up the fact that ideal beauty erases real and very natural things about women, all in the name of keeping men comfortable.

Women feel as if they must change completely natural things about themselves and buy into things that will make them look younger, thinner, hiding menstruation as to not scare the fragile men! In chapter two of my essay I touch on this, with the quote: “Veiling implies secrecy. Women’s bodies, and by extension, female attributes cannot be treates as fully public, something dangerous might happen” (Jordanova,L 1989: 17)

This definitely made me want to draw a lot of things that would make men uncomfortable, and address this erasure. 

I always want to address menstruation, as it seems to be something that makes everyone uncomfortable to talk about, see, or think about. It is a natural bodily function and yet is hidden from society to the point we have terms like "time of the month" to avoid saying the dreaded "PERIOD", "MENSTUATION", "BLOOD IS COMING OUT OF A VAGINA". (also the blue liquid in tampon and sanitary towel adverts, does this disguise the fact they're soaking up blood?)

1. LIPSTICK SMUDGES - I read another quote in Jacki Willson's Being Gorgeous that visual pleasure is not necessarily linked to beauty, we are drawn to imperfections in things, so I just wanted to play with smudging and making it imperfect. The lipstick mark could be seen as a flirtacious signifier. It gave some effects.

2. GLITTER PERIOD - This idea was just stuck in my head. I wanted to take things that are 'taboo' to talk about like periods or female body hair and glamorise them. Combining a sense of appeal with the unease of the taboo. This particular experiment was not so fruitful, and would definitely need more thought and refinement to be successful. Though I like the idea of glamour and unease being combined. 

3. PIN UP PERIOD - A couple of sketches thinking again of glamorising the uneasy. concepts for sexy women / pin up style women putting in or taking out tampons. 

4. Judy Chicago's Red Flag

I saw this piece at the Feminist Avant Garde exhibition and was just totally drawn to it. The pulling out of the tampon I thought gives a really phallic suggestion, mixed with the absolutely non-phallic concept of menstruation, it's like double discomfort for a male viewer, I love it.