Jessica Philbrick
Performing Femininity
“What are other women really thinking, feeling, experiencing, when they slip away from the gaze and culture of men?”
Performing Femininity is a project embedded in a feminist consciousness concerned with negotiating experiences of femininity through the physical appearances of women. This project supports my ongoing research trajectory of investigating how the male gaze, the female gaze and western mass media influence how women evaluate their sense of self-worth.
I have investigated ways to revisit femininity through my video and photographic work by addressing the power of the gaze and by performing elements of femininity through an act of masquerade. The project integrates material from audio responses by young New Zealand women who contributed their thoughts on the ideals of feminine appearances.
Masquerade, femininity and (mis)representations have been addressed to draw attention to and challenge the social construction of femininity and its attendant aesthetic regime in contemporary art and ideals of the female body.
