Object #9: Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now

Maya Angelou’s 1993 book of essays and autobiographical sketches is considered to be one of her wisdom books, and was published shortly after she recited at Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration. The book has short vignettes and essays about many things, including embracing diversity and the importance of a life well-lived. It is where she argues that “human beings are more alike than unalike,” a statement that makes our obsession with perfection and objectification seem silly, if not dangerous to our own subjectivity.

It is an appropriate piece with which to finish this exhibition because it demonstrates the power one can have once one has embraced her or his identity as a unique individual and subject.  Objects such as this very small book can resonate widely. They should serve as a reminder of their creator, who is someone with unique thoughts, insights and experiences.

By the time all of us have reached Angelou’s age, we can hope to have embraced ourselves as unique individuals with many, many things in common. We can all accept that the perfect ideal does not exist, is simply someone else’s fantasy imposed upon us, and we can finally begin to use our lives to rectify structural injustices such as those found in the casual sexism that surrounds us daily.

Object #8: Michelle Obama: Feminist Nightmare?

                Roxanne Gay’s article in online magazine, Salon, discusses the idea that has become popular that First Lady Michelle Obama is doing nothing to further the cause of feminism. Obama has been criticized because she has taken on social policy issues that are often gendered female, such as childhood obesity and education, and embraces her role as mother. Gay argues that this critique “is not so much a feminist reaction to Michelle Obama’s tenure as first lady as it is a very specific white feminist reaction. It is a reaction that suggests that a feminist’s true concerns should be political and actionable through policy initiatives that further a white feminist agenda. It is a reaction that willfully ignores how feminist and groundbreaking and necessary it is to see a black woman raising her own children and moving through the world the way Michelle Obama does.” And so Obama is now given the task of being the poster child for the Mommy Wars that are fought on playgrounds in middle class neighborhoods all over the nation.

                Even someone as powerful as Michelle Obama has a role, has to be a certain kind of feminist – an object that will please the left (because goodness knows she will never be able to please the right), she has to fight to claim her subjectivity. It leaves the rest of us with little hope that we can escape those powerful boxes and limiting roles in which we find ourselves. If feminists can criticize a powerful, empowered woman who is pursuing her own interests for the greater good of society as not feminist enough, can they themselves really be considered feminists in the broader, ethical sense of allowing for diversity and equality?

Object #7: The Dinner Party

         I wish I knew more about this installation, and one day hope to visit it in person. I first learned about Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party in an art history course as the premier example of feminist art, which welcomed all women to sit at the table and celebrate their accomplishments. Or at least that’s how it was taught to me. At the time, it seemed a relatively non-threatening idea. And yet, it is problematic. The women at the table are either ancient or Western, with a few exceptions. They’re the ones you’d expect to find at this great immortalizing banquet. That’s always the problem with famous women – they’re exceptional and there are too few that everyone agrees on who should be seated at the table. Now, I think about the heritage floor. 999 women are represented there, their names inscribed on the floor. The interpretation that these women were walked on is obvious, but to my mind perhaps it’s time we moved their names to the walls or tables, so that we could see them without looking down.

         Women’s history is a history of injustice, writ large and small. And the worst offenders are sometimes ourselves – there is no right way to be a feminist or a woman, and yet it seems that the messages we hear are all about searching for that right way while shaming and stigmatizing the non-conformers.