Verity: our GC symbol?

Not suggesting these images as an idea but definitely more the kind of artist I'd want.

www.culturalreproducers.org/2013/01/jenny-savilles.html

Jenny Saville gets my vote.

I don't like it myself. I don't get the nudity for a start. I'm just fed up of naked women everywhere in art (men too I suppose - the stadium in Rome surrounded by statues of naked men for instance).

I do love Georgia O'Keefe though - I remember being pleasantly surprised when my 6 year-old's art teacher had her as a topic one term, and they all did flowers inspired by her work.

I'm sure if you searched through Women's Art on Twitter you could find something a million times better than Hirst could ever do -

twitter.com/womensart1?lang=en

A dismembered and flayed pregnant woman. No thanks.

Hirst sets every misogynist siren and bell I have going.

I saw this posted on Mumsnet ages ago. I think it would look great on a t-shirt but seems a little aggressive.

Called virgin mother though.

Oh right therrss a colourful version at the Yorkshire sculpture park now.

The thing that annoyed me is she has no pubic hair and when your that pregnant you don't give a shit about it, if you ever do in the first place.

I was also annoyed at the unisex loos in the new RIBA award winning gallery not far up the hill from where she is. The sinks are in the shared space. One cubicle has a female symbol, the rest have squiggles.

ByGrabtharsHammer what a sane normal person you are.

Such a refreshing relief from so much histrionic and/ or crass bullshit.

We do not wail and gnash our teeth and get 'triggered' and whinge about things to do with pregnancy or childbirth or parenting being problematic and potentially distressing.

After my termination (which I was coerced into and bitterly regretted) I was extremely "triggered" by any sight of pregnant women or babies. I did ask a few people privately to stop showing me baby pictures (not of their own babies I should add, but like "oh look at so and so's baby" kind of thing). It was extremely upsetting for me. I avoided a few people I knew who were pregnant at that time - again, no one close to me. I unfollowed a lot of people on facebook to avoid baby pics. So yeh, if something is very raw then it can be a big deal to that person. Verity would definitely have upset me to see. But as much as I could I kept quiet about it and kept it as "my problem" rather than expecting other people to hide or change around me. You can be sensitive and aware that certain things might upset people without needing to avoid/ hide/ apologise for those things. And you can be hurt by things whilst still understanding that you can't ask everyone else to tiptoe around you over it. That's just the basics of coexisting with other people.

I don't like DH's work (and he seems like a horrible person as well), but I agree with Lass that a) it's possibly the least awful thing he's done and b) an artist who isn't currently active would be better. I see what you see in it, but men constructing women is the whole problem. I don't agree that we need to be apologetic or silent about female biology because not all women have x,y,z. That's basically the TRA argument! Maybe a Georgia O'Keefe giant flower vulva? I'm quite partial to those.

Hirst made it VERY clear to local businesses that they were in NO way to appropriate the image of Verity in order to profit from them.

Verity is potentially distressing for any woman suffering from miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility.

Bollocks. Please don't insult me and people who have experienced these things by implying this kind of rubbish.

I have never met a woman anywhere who does this, and I believe this is not something women do. We do not wail and gnash our teeth and get 'triggered' and whinge about things to do with pregnancy or childbirth or parenting being problematic and potentially distressing. For a start, this kind of behaviour isn't tolerated or indulged amongst women, and women are a hell of a lot tougher than that.

The only time you ever hear the 'it is potentially triggering' bullshit about female biology (you have that but I don't/I can't) is when the person who can't have it is male. Implying that women behave like this is trying to normalise the whole 'woman shouldn't be anything to do with biology' bullshit.

Woman is nothing BUT biology. I'm proud of that. With a fucked up uterus, I am proud of that.

Because there are no female artists?

I like it in a way. But I don't like Damien Hirst. But you're right OP that nothing will ever please everyone, and any strength of women depicted will always offend someone. Women can't be all things to all people.

It doesn't say gender critical to me. It's a pretty cheesy depiction of one kind of female strength, that's all. Sorry to piss on your chips.

I don't think Hirst needs publicity.

Verity is potentially distressing for any woman suffering from miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility.

If you are serious about making your gender critical symbol a thing beyond just your t-shirt you need a piece of work by an artist who has been dead for at least 50 years.

I don't suppose it is likely you will bump into Hirst wearing your t- shirt but you can't just appropriate his work.

I can see her from my bedroom window!

I love her!

Our Verity had a hysterectomy at 33. She was named for Truth. Her truth is that she can never have a child.

I loved the femaleness of her - the pregnant belly etc and it made me realise how rarely our bodies are portrayed anywhere. And she is gigantic!