Exercise 2.4: Stereotypes

Research point

Do some research into the work of three important women artists of the twentieth century: Hannah Höch (1889–1978), Tamara de Lempicka (1898–1980) and Frida Kahlo (1907–54).

I did assignment 4 critical review in Progressing with Digital Photography on how women photographers have evolved since photography began.  I researched several famed women photographers of today including Cindy Sherman and Lee Miller and feel that they are quite right in that women are objectified in pictures and these in themselves give impossible ideals for the girls and women of today to live up to.  In fact, it can have quite the opposite effect in that they go to extreme lengths to copy what they see and make themselves ill or near death (ie anorexia, bulimia) to feel good about themselves. 

Hoch, Lempicka and Hahlo are new to me but their work certainly shows what the average woman would aspire to.  Richard Billingham, Larry Sultan and Tina Barney started out showing their worlds as they were but eventually went to arranging their images to suit their ideas.

Today many magazines and fashion houses are severely criticized for using and portraying models as stick sized women claiming that their designs can only be shown successfully on a very thin person.  Some model agencies now only use models with more acceptable figures but every so often the industry is found to have regressed to the very thin ideal.  Cases of anorexia and bulimia have risen since the onset of the flat chested thin teenage girls as models causing much concern about ideals that cannot be achieved.

Articles are easy to find which cricitise this tendency towards unnatural body shapes :
  
The Sun ran an article recently

As did The Telegraph

And the Daily Mail

But still the industry fail to take much notice of these concerns !