“One is not born, but becomes a woman,” wrote Simone de Beauvoir in her major work “The Second Sex.” What constitutes femininity and femininity is still limited to traditional roles assigned to the “second sex” since the dawn of civilization. Despite some success in redefining what femininity can look like, we have not made significant progress.
Women are still treated as inferior beings by the patriarchy. They are valued only for the care and concern they can provide in their domestic tasks. The role of women in the eyes of society is then limited to bearing children and caring for the home. And nowhere was this more evident than in the art exhibition of Chapchar Kut, one of the most important spring festivals in Mizoram.
Progressive data, regressive representations
Chapchar Kut is a lively spring festival usually celebrated in March after the bamboo-cutting season. It is famous for the Cheraw (bamboo dance) as well as other traditional dances, music, competitions and festivals. Chapchar Kut originated as Agricultural festivalThis marks the end of the strenuous jhum farming harvest before the new sowing season begins.
Dancers perform Cheraw. Image source: Wikimedia Commons/Tlinga
Manipur has one of the highest sex ratios in the country 976 women per 1000 men. Against this background, one might think that the state is a refuge for gender equality and that its society has left patriarchy behind; However, this is not the case. When we visited the Chapchar Kut festival, we came across paintings that proved just that.
A recurring theme in these paintings was women depicted in the domestic sphere: in the kitchen, with their babies, and bathing by the river, in an aesthetically pleasing manner. No matter what domestic activities they were involved in, they looked flawless, with no blemishes or imperfections. Their bodies conform to conventional and patriarchal beauty standards. The dissonance between progressive statistics and the regressive imagery in the gallery space is the real crisis of Mizo gender politics.
Women as a spectacle, the male gaze in artand the Politics of looking
Even in art, women are rarely given agency. In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” British feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey said, “In their typical exhibitionist role, women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, their appearance coded to have a strong visual and erotic effect, so that they can be said to symbolize being looked at.” In this sense, the English art critic and novelist John Berger also said: “Men look at women.” “Women watch how they are looked at.”
Taken together, these ideas show that a woman’s presence in art is also mediated through the male gaze, which is shaped less by ideas of autonomy or agency and more by how she should be seen and consumed by men. Women are often reduced to objects constructed for visual consumption.
Berger suggested that women are still portrayed this way because the painter assumes that the “ideal” viewer is male and the woman in the painting is “designed to flatter him.”
When I spoke to one of the artists whose painting was exhibited at the gallery during the Chapchar Kut festival, I couldn’t say much about his inspiration in painting a beautiful woman in traditional attire. Berger suggested that women are still portrayed this way because the painter assumes that the “ideal” viewer is male and the woman in the painting is “designed to flatter him.” The American philosopher Marilyn Frye rightly pointed out in her 1983 book: “Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is people-loving.” In this case, it means that male artists paint for male audiences and male validation.
These galleries, like the one in Chapchar Kut, often reinforce male-centered worlds in which women exist as accessories rather than as distinct beings. For example, one of the paintings shows a woman separating stones from rice in a kitchen. Ironically, this painting is right next to another of two men dueling on a hill. That wasn’t an isolated case either. There were similar placements in other parts of the gallery.
John Berger argues that women learn to look at themselves through men’s eyes – that the act of looking is never neutral. If this is the case, female viewers cannot simply escape the male gaze; they actually participate in it. So the question is not just whether men see women this way, but also whether women have also learned to see themselves through this narrow, patriarchal lens. Do women ask themselves why the female body is always composed, controlled and domesticated? Or have these images become so familiar through repetition that they no longer stimulate thought?
When domesticity becomes fate
Domesticity itself does not necessarily have to be oppressive. For many, it can be a place of identity, care and comfort. It’s okay to take care of the house. However, this should not be the only role that women are limited to. A choice is not a real choice if you have no other meaningful options.
Representation shapes perception and perception shapes reality. When women are repeatedly visualized within domestic boundaries, those boundaries seem natural, even inevitable.
The art exhibition during Chapchar Kut summed up another quote from Berger: “Men question women before treating them.” Consequently, the way a woman appears to a man can determine how she is treated.” Representation shapes perception and perception shapes reality. When women are repeatedly visualized within domestic boundaries, those boundaries seem natural, even inevitable. According to a global survey Out of 23,000 people, young men are twice as likely to hold traditional views on gender roles as older generations.
The housewife, integrated into the house, in line with tradition, visually appealing and not disruptive, reflects the gender expectations anchored in patriarchy. This display of femininity determines which women are accepted and even celebrated by the patriarchy, but only as long as they remain within these prescribed boundaries.
American gender studies scholar Judith Butler argued that “gender is always an doing” and that “gender is an identity weakly constituted over time and established in an external space through a stylized repetition of actions.” This applies to the women in the paintings in the art gallery. The women in the paintings aesthetically repeated the daily domestic acts of cooking, caring, grooming, and running errands, while the men in the paintings hunt, spend time outdoors with animals, and fight other men. And so men and women also play roles in art that are determined by patriarchy.
We need to move beyond passive observation and begin to actively question the ideas hidden beneath the surface. Because if these gender roles are produced through repetition, they can also be called into question through repeated interruption.
Only those who take a closer look at what they see and question it can prevent these old patterns from repeating themselves. We need to move beyond passive observation and begin to actively question the ideas hidden beneath the surface. Because if these gender roles are produced through repetition, they can also be called into question through repeated interruption. The possibility of change lies in making visible what has long been taken for granted and refusing to see it as inevitable. If you look at these images without critical questioning, you accept, perhaps unconsciously, the limits they impose on women.
References
- Berger, J. (2008). Viewpoints. Penguin Great Britain.
- Butler, J. (2006). Gender Issues: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge.
- Frye, M. (1983). The politics of reality. Crossing Press.
- Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema.
