For my second-year final project, I was given the task of creating a practical project of my choice to reflect my understanding of the material in discussed in the module. I thought of the question “what is womanhood?” and I wanted to make a magazine cover that takes a satirical point of view toward women/feminism, and biopower. I wanted to deliberately make a connection between the stereotype of traditional womanhood, such as merely a reproductive body, a beauty body, or just a simple gender difference. Taking into consideration that there are more recent events of harm towards women, so I also wanted to emphasize/address “femicide”. I also wanted to touch on the concept of women being conditioned into “docile bodies”.
I explored the societal standards held towards women as well, which have been focused on beauty. Beauty standards frequently change but nevertheless there is a standard. Amongst social media in recent years there has been discussions about “pretty privileges”, which essentially means that women who are “pretty” can get away with certain behaviour.
The picture I chose was taken by me and it was deliberate because I wanted to reflect a magazine cover like Vogue or Harper’s Bazaaz seeing as both magazines are predominantly for women. I also wanted to poke fun at magazines like Cosmopolitan with statements like “5 ways to be a docile body”. I also wanted to include subtexts that reflect Cosmopolitan such as taking quizzes or taking a certain number of steps to make the lives of women better or add something to their lives that was apparently missing.