Gender in Society (2)

A challenge to preconceptions.

First, a photo of the Countess de Castiglione sitting, presumably posed.  The photo is in black and white, though there are color versions.  She sits facing off the side with one hand on her lap and the other holding up something to block her face, leaving the audience to see only a bit of her forehead, her mouth, and her right eye.  Her shoulder hangs out of the dress she wore for the picture, which epitomized her desire to stand out during her time.  This photo is part of a series done by Pierre Louis Pierson.  The series began in 1856 and did not conclude until three decades later, in which Pierson photographed several hundreds of poses for the Countess.  Many of the photos from the series, like this one, had a seductive aura about them—something that was not generally acceptable at the time they were taken.  Though risqué, the femininity of this photo is undeniable. 

Next, is a photo of a vandalized Mona Lisa, created and photographed by Marcel Duchamp in 1919.  The photo is is named L.H.O.O.Q.  The photo was created as a joke, poking fun at the ambiguity of the gender of the Mona Lisa.  With the simple drawing of a mustache and beard, Duchamp was able to turn around the way people viewed a very famous painting.  Though it is commonly held that the Mona Lisa portrays a female, it could just as easily portray a male. 

These photos provide evidence of society’s ability to judge gender based on simple details or features.  Both photos challenged the way people thought about women during their time.  The countess chose to have herself photographed in promiscuous ways in order to make herself stand out, and go against the way that women who lived at that time were seen.  Duchamp, when he turns the Mona Lisa into a picture of a man, challenges the reasons that the public categorized the face in the picture as a woman before.  The notion that the Mona Lisa was a woman, as well as the notion that women were meant to be covered up all the time, is similar to the way that Judith Butler describes society perceiving gender today.  For some reason, we shield ourselves from certain possibilities in the same way we are ignorant of alternative sexualities.  In a way, these photos help the alternative interpretations of the Mona Lisa and femininity “come out”.  The concepts that the photos reveal were always present, but oppressed inside some sort of theoretical closet, the same way gays and lesbians are.  “We are out of the closet, but into what?” (309).  There still exists resistance once gay people are out.  There still exists resistance to women showing skin.  There still exists resistance to the Mona Lisa being a man.  “For being ‘out’ always depends to some extent on being ‘in’; it gains its meaning only within that polarity.” (309)