A Mutiny
Monday, May 9, 2011 at 11:54AM One of the questions posed by feminist thinkers is "Do women really have to be like / act like stereotypical men to succeed in this world?"
In the fantasy genre, we see plenty of women kicking ass and offing the bad guy just as well as the male heroes do. The genre's images are empowering; it gives women and girls participating in role-playing games (RPGs) and reading the stories the idea that they too, can be efficacious and strong. In these imagined worlds, women are treated equally, having the same rights, powers, and responsibilities that they might not enjoy in their real lives. And there are protections and polite regulations in the game/ story that they may not enjoy in reality.
We see the same kind of ruthless play in the corporations and the boardrooms across the US. Does playing like the guys really change the status of women? We see women leaving the corporate world for "more quality lives", having children, starting their home businesses, enjoying a higher sense of purpose and happiness. We also saw women trying to fit into the corporate world by adopting certain roles (http://www.oprah.com/money/The-Corporate-Dominatrix) in order to appeal to a corporate male mindset. Still, others have decided that the way that they think differently, placing emphasis on customer care and networking, is changing the corporate world from the inside http://excelle.monster.com/benefits/articles/1118-how-women-succeed-in-corporate-america ,
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2009-01-01-women-ceos-increase_N.htm.
When I began drawing A Mutiny, all I was thinking was, "What if women were pirates?" What would they look like and in what situation would I place them? In this case, I ended up deciding that they would be involved in a mutiny, throwing off whatever colonializing power was there.
Mutinous pirates that sail the Seven Seas on a stolen ship might be from a bygone era (and is a good thing), so the image is one for the fantasy books. But there are still so many real things to address in today's social milieu that require upstart thinking and radical action.
This drawing is now a painting-in-progress. :)
Reader Comments (1)
Amazing painting.Thanks for posting this. i really had good time reading this.