Month: April 2016

Project 4, Post 5

Posted on by katiethielen

Artist Statement

Rape culture is one of the biggest societal issues today that affects women’s (and men’s) bodies.  The normalization and pervasion of rape causes women to change their appearance in order to prevent being sexually assaulted.  Instead of teaching people to respect others bodies, women are taught to avoid being sexually assaulted through their choice in clothing, the place they walk and what time they walk there, how much they drink, etc.  The T-Shirt graphic is a compilation of words, phrases, and numbers associated with rape culture.  The poster depicts a scene of a woman in some kind of trouble, but the men nearby and giving excuses as to why she could ever be assaulted, all of which put the blame on her, the victim, for getting hurt.  I wanted to bring this issue to light because we often times forget how prevalent it is in our culture.  Rape culture subtly works its way into popular media and culture without proper attention as to what it really is and how we are making the victims of sexual assault feel.

Project 4, Post 3

Posted on by katiethielen

Here’s some more info about rape culture and what it entails:

Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault.

Project 4, Post 1

Posted on by katiethielen

Here are some examples of posters that are influencing my Body Politics project.  I want to use the same type of style and color scheme as some of the WWII posters, but with the content of some of the rape culture posters.  I want to use a simple color scheme with red, yellow, black, and white.

4.2.7

Project 4 Ideas and TShirt

Posted on by katiethielen

T-Shirt Info:

Medium, white

Ideas:

For this project, I want to explore how people’s bodies are impacted by rape culture, not only physically, but emotionally.  Women (and also men) are taught to prevent being raped through the prohibition of certain clothing, not drinking too much, and making sure they don’t “encourage it”.  Instead of teaching society to not rape, society teaches women (and also men) to change themselves in order to protect themselves from such barbaric acts of violence.

It might be interesting to do a calligram of phrases associated with rape culture and statistics.  Not quite sure what the image itself would be yet.