It's War - Guerrilla Style

...war on my two greatest enemies, misogyny and apathy, that is!

This year is the 25th anniversary of the feminist group the Guerrilla Girls. Being a fan of popular culture, feminism, and general subversiveness, I can’t help but love the mask-donning Girls. So I thought I’d share the feminist love by spreading the word about these wonderful people and what they do.

The Guerrilla Girls are a group of anonymous ‘radical’ feminists who got together in New York in 1985, unhappy with the state of the art world. They wear gorilla masks in public (because they’re badass, OK?) and take the names of dead female artists as pseudonyms. Through the medium of posters, books, billboards, appearances and general jungle drag craziness, the Girls expose discrimination and corruption in the worlds of art and popular culture. Their work combines texts, facts and snappy graphics that present strong feminist viewpoints in a humorous manner, making it fun and accessible, but no less hard-hitting.

Their first work was putting up posters on the streets of New York criticizing the gender and racial imbalance of artists represented in galleries and museums. They’ve completed many such campaigns over the years, including the one above, whilst also expanding their activism to examine Hollywood and the film industry, gender stereotyping, corruption in the art word and general popular culture. One of my favourite books of theirs, Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: the Guerrilla Girls’ illustrated guide to female stereotypes, tackles the proliferation of derogatory and restrictive female stereotypes. The final paragraph of the introduction provides one of the best soundbite definitions of just one of the Guerilla Girls’ aims:

‘By empowering women to create their own stereotypes and to reject the ones our culture tries to squeeze us into, the Guerrilla Girls want to do our share toward saving the world from sexists and misogynists everywhere, and have fun along the way.’

But what I think is one of the Guerrilla Girls’ most important objectives is to rehabilitate ‘the f word’ (feminism!) so that people who support the main tenets of the cause – equal opportunity, an end to gender based discrimination, general human rights for women, etc – but are currently afraid or dismissive of the label, will accept the term, and even be proud to call the themselves feminists.

This, I feel (from much experience), is one of the main problems feminism faces today: fear of ‘the f word’ and people’s general apathy. Many times I’ve heard people say ‘I’m not a feminist, but...’ from people who support feminist principles but either don’t make the connection between their egalitarian ideas and feminism, or are just too afraid of the many ‘unattractive’ (and false) stereotypes surrounding feminists. And most of the time, these people voice concern over these issues, but fail to do anything to about them. Apathy, apathy, apathy.

So my message for today: DO something – something for what you believe in. It doesn’t have to be a big thing: maybe just spreading the word, sharing your beliefs, like I’ve done with this post. Or you could sign a petition or join a group promoting your cause (I’d recommend joining the End Sexism on Facebook group that my friend J and I set up!). Or just find out a bit more about it - read a book, browse the internet – cheesy as it sounds, education really is empowerment. You can even do something just by being yourself: by expressing your individuality and refusing to conform to stereotypes. Remember: you're not a bimbo, a bitch, or a ballbreaker unless you let yourself think you are.

So what are you waiting for? Go forth and kick some oppressive patriarchal ass!