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Original poster

Bought a print I love, DH is worried it's racist

999 replies

NC4T · 31/05/2018 21:12

Saw it on IG and loved it. Purchased it for the laundry room corridor, but it's arrived and DH is a little worried it might be racist. I can't see how. To me, it's a mum finding a few minutes of calm in the chaos and I love her babies little sleeping face.

We are white Jewish, for cultural context.

What do you think?

OP posts:
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17
whatislionshare · 31/05/2018 22:54

It's just a mum waiting for the washing machine to finish whilst reading her book with her baby on her back.

By looking at the other artworks she does I would say she's not trying to give some profound message through her painting, they're lighthearted.

Definitely not racist

RomeoBunny · 31/05/2018 22:54

Is it to represent the modernisation of traditional cultures? A nod to the way technology has improved our lives so now she can read a book instead of spend hours washing clothes? I don't get it. It's a simple pretty drawing but I feel there's more behind it than you think. Nothing racist though I can see how it could be perceived as such in a white jewish household.

DianaPrincessOfThemyscira · 31/05/2018 22:54

I like female nudity in an arty but not for the male gaze kind of way. I like this print because to me it shows a new mum catching a minute where she can. I don’t think it’s racist but I can see how people might find it problematic, it’s the use of that particular type of sling.

iwishicouldbelikedavidwatts · 31/05/2018 22:54

Definitely NOT something you should hang

lol :D

iwishicouldbelikedavidwatts · 31/05/2018 22:55

problematic is the sling? really?

MiggeldyHiggins · 31/05/2018 22:56

Of course it's racist....even if the artist didn't INTEND for it to be so he has removed her dignity by portraying her with a traditional baby carrier and in no clothing...and then put her in a solidly Western environment NAKED!

its your interpretation that is racist. Why is her dignity removed by being naked? Women can be dignified and naked, and why shouldn't she be in "western environment" she may be a western woman! Also wtf is western about having a washing machine? You think they don't exist anywhere else?

Some of the comments here are horribly racist. The assumptions are insane. Black does not equal african, baby in a sling does not equal african, naked does not equal poor or undignified.

IAmNotAWitch · 31/05/2018 22:56

OK, just so I am clear no-one else has ever been putting a load of washing on and decided to wash what they were wearing at that time as well? Just me?

MiggeldyHiggins · 31/05/2018 22:57

not just you

buttfacedmiscreant · 31/05/2018 22:57

I occasionally do laundry naked because I want the clothes I have on to be cleaned in that load. When I had young kids I did it more often because I had just been puked on. I don't assume anything about why she is naked.

AsAProfessionalFekko · 31/05/2018 22:59

I think it's cute.

iwishicouldbelikedavidwatts · 31/05/2018 22:59

i did laundry nekkid when my kids were sling-sized because nobody complained about it when i did. teenagers apparently have a different opinion on their parents uncovered flesh. who knew?

QuackPorridgeBacon · 31/05/2018 22:59

I’ve seen the price. I don’t think I could afford to buy it lol.

AjasLipstick · 31/05/2018 22:59

50Shades where's his website? The artist's I mean.

JennieLee · 31/05/2018 23:00

I think it was a staple of 70s soft porn/Carry on type films that women would be seen/exposed as being naked - showing their boobs/their arse etc - in all sorts of improbable environments. 'Oh I just had to put all my clothes in the washing machine and I didn't have a stitch to wear and then the window-cleaner called round wanting to be paid'.

So this is a weird fusion of Madonna iconography (mother holds baby) with the tackily domestic/erotic - woman inexplicably sticks her arse and tries to read out by washing machine

reddingtn · 31/05/2018 23:01

surely it's more sexist than racist - stereotypical woman doing the laundry and looking after the baby

colditz · 31/05/2018 23:02

I took something a bit different from this print

She's naked because the clothes she was wearing were the last of the dirty clothes, and the baby will only be quiet if the washing machine is on. So for half an hour's peace, she washed her last dirty clothes and leaned on the warm washer with a book.

sleepingdragons · 31/05/2018 23:02

So here we see an impoverished African woman with nothing to her name but a book and the clothes she's presumably just put in the washing machine.

We?! Speak for yourself. That's what you see.

I'm not sure why you would want to display such a deliberately strange and incoherent image.

I don't think it's strange or incoherent at all!

I identify with her and aspire to be like her. She's a mum, she looks comfortable, at home, grabbing 5 minutes so she can enjoy actually using her brain (yay!!) to read a book while also comforting her baby and doing the washing. As far as "me time" goes, this is as good as it gets in those early baby days.

I wonder if maybe she's been in bed doing skin to skin with her baby, to help with BFing. Or just relaxed and comfortable without clothes, at home with the baby. Or maybe the baby just puked on her, and she was going to put more books on but then the baby fell asleep, she saw the book and thought - fuck it! Sod going up stairs for clothes and waking the baby! This is a chance to catch up on the book I was reading before this baby was born and ate all my time!

Her house is warm and comfy. Her baby looks content and snuggly.

It's small, ordinary but magic moment in the life of a mum who knows what's important in life (books and happy babies but not unnecessary conventions like clothes when no ones looking!).

I love it.

BettyBaggins · 31/05/2018 23:02

I love how the artist treats the mum tum. And stubbly legs. Looking at her website it makes much more sense in context.

When the artists self portrait went viral she said this.

"It really surprised me that a drawing would get that much hate and people felt intitled to write the most awful things. But somehow it woke me up and made me remember how important it is to keep drawing and representing all kinds of bodies on social media and everywhere else. Saggy boobs, hairy armpits, swollen legs - it´s not dangerous or sensational, it´s just plane normal."

I like it even more now.

sleepingdragons · 31/05/2018 23:03

she was going to put more books on

No - clothes!!! She was going to put clothes on, not books!!

MiggeldyHiggins · 31/05/2018 23:04

I’ve seen the price. I don’t think I could afford to buy it lol

It's 23 pounds.

iwishicouldbelikedavidwatts · 31/05/2018 23:04

So this is a weird fusion of Madonna iconography (mother holds baby) with the tackily domestic/erotic - woman inexplicably sticks her arse and tries to read out by washing machine

is the unspoken subtext that she's waiting for the spin cycle? :D

DianaPrincessOfThemyscira · 31/05/2018 23:05

The sling type makes it look less western. That’s all. I like normal women doing normal things but clearly some people take from it far more than I do.

neveradullmoment99 · 31/05/2018 23:06

Its NOT racist.

tiddliewinkiewoo · 31/05/2018 23:07

So those posters who see race and domestication and stereotyping of women?

Can I ask what you see of this?

Absolutely find it bizarre that people see an impoverished African black woman with a basket (that most of us have surely as it's a 'washing basket' ) rather than a woman chilling and taking five while baby sleeps.

Yes the picture might not be to your taste which is fine - but to see offence when there really is none, is weird Confused

PerfectlySymmetricalButtocks · 31/05/2018 23:07

I love it, and wish our washing machine wasn't in a cupboard.