“There is power in looking.” Bell Hooks (Oppositional Gaze)

My project explores how vulnerability in various mediums encourages and embodies resistance. I want to explore these themes in Meiselas’ Room of One’s Own versus her more “graphic” work, Archives of Abuse. How is resistance showcased on a different scale in both of these works? I would like to incorporate the themes of some of our readings and apply those themes to all of the works mentioned, such as those by Hooks, Butler, Mulvey, and Prosser. And finally, I will be incorporating the notion of topless/nude protesting as a form of resistance and vulnerability (bodies in the street).

When we think about violence against women, what do our minds immediately go to? Or, if I ask somebody to show me an example of violence against women, they might feel hesitant and not want to search for that image. Our minds immediately go to the media’s showcasing of violence against women in a world of growing access to those mediums. They might not want to have to “see” that photo or scene either.

How much “vulnerability” do we want access to, as spectators? Or, what do we feel is “appropriate” to look at as those that cast a gaze onto those photos? Are photographs of battered women too graphic, too violent? Or is the lack of that media, the one that showcases the most severe forms of violence against women, more harmful? Is it better that we never see those instances to protect our own perceptions of violence, or is it worse? These are all questions I explored as I looked through various forms of media by Susan Meiselas, artist Donna Ferrato, and women protesting topless/nude for different occasions. 

How do the photos and media we are exposed to promote resistance through vulnerability? How do these photos encourage the feminist gaze and urge resistance?

My thesis: 

Resistance is showcased through these photographs by urging, almost forcing the spectator to look and witness them, no matter the difference in severity of subject(s). Like Hooks says, "there is power in looking", and exposure with brute force allows the photograph’s narrative and intention to transform the spectator. The spectator goes from a passive onlooker to an active participant. It is through the exposure to these photographs and these mediums that audiences can truly understand the severity of conditions survivors have endured at the hands of perpetrators. This severity is embodied differently within different photographs (some more graphic, some less). The body itself is the vessel of resistance, the space is the vessel, etc. Furthermore, it is through exposure to the naked female body in protest that people are exposed to the most attention-capturing part of protest; it is the ultimate form of resistance through bodily vulnerability and power.

Making Violence Visible: 

Meiselas’ Archives of Abuse 

When studying Archives of Abuse, I am reminded of a phrase Bell Hooks mentions in “The Oppositional Gaze,” which says that throughout history, as white people repressed the black gaze, “there was now an overwhelming longing, a rebellious desire, an oppositional gaze.” 

I see these words echoing in the very actions of gazing at these photographs. For so long, the public has been entirely indifferent to the realities of abuse that women undergo. Abuse was seen as an issue within the home, and whatever occurred within those spaces was to remain private and away from the public eye. Women’s issues were domestic, and the public was not to be exposed to domestic problems. But, as Meiselas’ project broke that barrier, it established a form of resistance. It resisted the apathy and attitude of ignorance within the public, as the harshness of those photographs was projected onto bus stops as anti-abuse advertisements. 

Hooks also says she “would not only stare, but to change reality with her look.”

These photos are a means to showcase the ultimate vulnerability, and that showcasing of vulnerability serves the purpose of resistance. The reality and experiences the subjects in these photos have experienced are beyond brutal, and their existence is now made into the center of others’ blurred realities.

Whether or not the survivors pictured in these photographs are staring directly or just present and allowing those photos to be taken, it is a form of changing reality with their presence. It is reclaiming oneself. I hear Hooks' words echoing within myself as I gaze at these photographs, no matter how difficult it is to look at them. By looking, our realities are changed. 

Resistance in Subtlety: 

Meiselas’ Room of Their Own

In Room of Their Own, Meiselas photographs different scenes from domestic violence shelters in the United Kingdom. When I look at these photographs, I think about how aspects of violence and graphic content is lacking from these photos. Instead, these photos may be perceived as mundane and less attention-capturing compared to Meiselas’ Archives of Abuse. 

However, these photos themselves showcase a different aspect of resistance. The impact these photos have on the observer is the ability to see the women’s safe space, to see that there is life after assault, or to pay homage to a transitional point in their lives where they find themselves and their safety within these shelters. 

I find Prosser’s "Picturing Atrocity" article most relevant here when I analyze this medium of photography. There is no violence depicted, no gory suffering in the way we are exposed to in the other project. Prosser says, “There’s more atrocity when the suffering is closer to home…photography is not innocent but can be part of an atrocity as a spectacle” (Prosser 9). There is no room to interpret these photos as adding to an atrocity, in inciting further terror.

I feel as though these photos leave less space for the interpretation that these images themselves are making a spectacle of suffering. Rather, they showcase a different perspective of abuse, an equally important part: healing. This is resistance to the depiction of “just suffering” as it showcases vulnerability in someone's space, not through someone's physical pain. 

Vulnerability and Violence: 

Donna Ferrato Living with the Enemy

Donna Ferrato has been working for over twenty years on depicting not only abuse as it is showcased on the sufferer but also the impact of abuse on the woman and children. 

I see this photography collection with parallels to Prosser’s work, as it can and does depict atrocity on a more extreme level. Prosser says that “the photography of atrocity urges a response from us…we cannot look at this photography the way we look at others” (9) 

Prosser says that one of the reasons why atrocity photography immediately grabs our attention is because we don’t know how to respond or what to do as a response. That uncertainty adds a layer of interest, as we are drawn to what is the most atrocious. The gaze that we depict here is one of ultimate interest, of horror, of disgust? All of these are valid responses and are more varied than those that are less violent, for instance. 


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Another point these photos and Archives of Abuse bring forward is whether some very horrific events should have even been photographed? To that, I ask your opinion. As onlookers, spectators, those exhibiting our gaze onto these atrocities, is accessibility to the harm of these people harmful?

In my opinion, Ferrato’s photography is a form of resisting abuse by showcasing a different aspect of vulnerability. This third aspect of vulnerability is through photographed reactions to pain, to healing, to the aftermath of abuse. Some of the photos of the aftermath of abuse include those of women sharing their emotions (crying, speaking) and even their children. This is powerful in creating that legacy of healing and showcasing the actualities that come after abuse. 

Demanding the Gaze: 

Topless protests: 

From protests in Chile, Paris, and the rest of the world, showcasing the nude body as a means of advancing an agenda has garnered lots of attention. Whether this attention is positive or negative, it adds to conversations about resistance, the body as a vessel in the street (Butler), and the values of resistance displayed in nudity. 

One of the most significant challenges to women protesting topless is that it “sexualizes” the context of the protesting and strips away from its intention. I see parallels in this misconception with the notes by Mulvey regarding women as the figure of the male gaze in the media. (As we all know, this is regarding studying cinema, but I wanted to connect these thoughts to my point). Mulvey says, “the visual presence of the woman has tended to freeze the flow of action…” (29). I see this parallel in the perception of topless protests. Topless women are not perceived as resistors by male audiences, critical female audiences, etc.; instead, they are just promiscuous, removing themselves from reality and removing importance from protest.

However, Butler’s reading implies the resistance aspect to this type of protest: women are using their bodies as a risk, exposing themselves to possible harm to advance their purposes (12). Your vulnerability is confronted in showing up, in opposing the police or another political force. 

Therefore, protesting nude is resistance in that it showcases vulnerability through putting the body at risk. Being naked implies being vulnerable, and bravely putting yourself in that space allows for more gaze, more perceptions, more conversation, and more advancement in agenda. The women here, like the women's bodies and depictions of space above, are abandoning their fears by showcasing themselves.

Bibliography:

hooks, bell. "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators." Black Looks: Race and Representation, South End Press, 1992, pp. 115-131.

Judith Butler. "Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance," Duke University Press, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822373490-002.

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Media Analysis, Amherst College, n.d., https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/1021/Laura%2520Mulvey,%2520Visual%2520Pleasure.pdf.

Jay Prosser “Picturing Atrocity” 

Novak, Lorie. "Photographic Interference." Lorie Novak's Portfolio, n.d., https://lorienovak.com/pdfs/Novak_Photographic_Interference.pdf.

Susan Meiselas Archiving Abuse and A Room of Their Own,