Verity: our GC symbol?

[thatdamnwoman]

After a trip to Ilfracombe last year I've been wondering about having one of my photos of Verity

www.visitilfracombe.co.uk/item/verity-by-damien-hirst/

printed on a t-shirt as a symbol of GC womanhood. Verity is visibly female, pregnant and on the anatomically exposed side of her you can see the foetus in her uterus, her milk ducts and various other details that stem from being female and XX — things that no amount of woman-face and surgery can fake.

She stands on books: science and the law. And she brandishes the sword of truth. I can't think of a more appropriate symbol.

When I've put it to various GC women I know they have been unimpressed. 'It's by a man and we need a symbol by a woman.' 'It's horrible, it shows a woman flayed.' 'Horrible image of woman.'

I'm as pissed off as the next woman that she was created by a man but since when have images of women had to be 'nice' and aesthetically pleasing? Isn't it being nice and warm and huggly that's got us into this situation? Don't we need to be strong and angry and armed with the sword of truth and supported firmly by law and science in order to be heard?

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.

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.

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.

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.

ByGrabtharsHammer what a sane normal person you are.

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

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.

Called virgin mother though.

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

A dismembered and flayed pregnant woman. No thanks.

Hirst sets every misogynist siren and bell I have going.

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

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.

Jenny Saville gets my vote.

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

This is fun:

twitter.com/womensart1/status/1146401968937721857

Naked women unfortunately might be rather a good symbol, given that most MTF trans keep their penis and testicles. There'd be a bit of cognitive dissonance if that was on display.

Erythronium

This is fun:
twitter.com/womensart1/status/1146401968937721857

I like that one by far the most. It's a bit like Niki de Sainte Phalle's sculptures.

The nudity is about biology ffs!

I thought the women’s lib symbol was clenched fist inside the womb sign? or am I decades out of date, genuine question!

I don't like it, sorry. She's naked and looks like she's about to fight someone and pregnant women are so vulnerable they always get hurt in war. I hate the one of the pregnant woman with her skin ripped off.

How about this one I took in Japan

Also, Georgia o'Keefe is amazing

I hadn't seen those before. Thanks LassOfFyvie.

Actually you just know that Hirst's whole career has been working up to displaying a dismembered, disembowelled woman.

Now he's where he is he can do it without comment and no-one will think about what they're looking at.

The Serbian war I think it was, where soldiers would tie pregnant women to trees and cut out their babies and leave them to die on the tree

ByGrabtharsHammer what a sane normal person you are.Such a refreshing relief from so much histrionic and/ or crass bullshit.

Big seconds to that

My grief around child bearing has lead me to wail and gnash my teeth and my women friends have cried with me. It's all part of living and grieving and I don't hold with having to be 'tougher than that'. Let's allow us to be human.

Erythronium I've just got to the end of the women's art Twitter thread. Thank you for posting it. I don't think there was a single work which I didn't find more interesting than Hirst's statue. And I'm not one to talk up work just because it's by a woman. The images were witty, thought- provoking and original.

I've downloaded and saved so many images.

Possibly Verity needs to be seen in the flesh, as it were to appreciate it , but a naked , pregnant woman isn't terribly original.