Feminist art raises consciousness, invites dialogue, and transforms culture.

- Arlene Raven, art historian and Woman's Building co-founder

Last spring, while attending a writing conference in the desert, I had occasion to share a table over lunch with a woman I'd never met before. Perhaps ten years my senior, she confided that she was back in school pursuing her doctorate. Her dissertation, she divulged, would be about representations of Eve in the work of contemporary writers and artists. "I have a poem with Eve in it," I couldn't help but offer, and she insisted I send it to her. Like me, she was a feminist, and it was through this door that we entered to find common ground. Our conversation was deep and intimate, rapid fire, ideas and revelations spilling over themselves in our fervor to express them. Amidst the sea of writers and academics at the conference, we were delighted to have found each other.... Flyer soliciting membership using photo montage created by Susan Mogul in 1973. Part of the "Who Said A Woman Can't" advertising campaign written by Linda Macaluso.

Truth is, for that hour or so over salad and sandwich, I think we fell a little in love with each other. I don't mean that in the romantic sense. I was reminded of the early years of Second Wave feminism, the seventies, when women were becoming conscious of our own power and vibrancy, and when we'd meet another who was engaged in that same process, we couldn't help but fall in love because she was a reflection of our own possibilities. Last spring, while attending a writing conference in the desert, I had occasion to share a table over lunch with a woman I'd never met before. Perhaps ten years my senior, she confided that she was back in school pursuing her doctorate. Her dissertation, she divulged, would be about representations of Eve in the work of contemporary writers and artists. "I have a poem with Eve in it," I couldn't help but offer, and she insisted I send it to her. Like me, she was a feminist, and it was through this door that we entered to find common ground. Our conversation was deep and intimate, rapid fire, ideas and revelations spilling over themselves in our fervor to express them. Amidst the sea of writers and academics at the conference, we were delighted to have found each other. Truth is, for that hour or so over salad and sandwich, I think we fell a little in love with each other. I don't mean that in the romantic sense. I was reminded of the early years of Second Wave feminism, the seventies, when women were becoming conscious of our own power and vibrancy, and when we'd meet another who was engaged in that same process, we couldn't help but fall in love because she was a reflection of our own possibilities. So I was startled when, near the end of our meal, my table companion lamented, with great sorrow and weariness, that the women's movement had been "a failure." "How can you say that?" I asked, incredulous. "Well, so much of what we fought for didn't come to pass," she explained. "But so much has! Don't you remember what it was like before?" I pleaded with her. "In the nineteen sixties, would you have imagined that you could get your Ph.D.? Could we have regarded Eve as anything other than the source of original sin? We have to measure our success from where we've come, not by how far we have to go!" Breathless, I made myself stop; I was in danger of spontaneous combustion. Yet, here we were: two women writers engaged in passionate discourse about ideas we held dearest: our work, our inspiration, our identities as women. Without the women's movement, and for myself, specifically without the feminist art movement, I knew, we would not have been there.

To understand the origins of the feminist art movement in the United States, one must look to the foment of the 1960s and early 70s, the swarm of rebellion and leaps in consciousness that redefined American culture. In 1955 a seamstress named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus and thus gave rise to the Civil Rights Movement, which ignited a host of struggles for social liberation waged by women, Chicanos, Native Americans, gays and lesbians, and others. These movements not only demanded more equitable distribution of power and resources, but raised profound questions about the meaning assigned to these identities and the cultural representations of these groups. Opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam stoked an unprecedented youth movement which, in addition to the politics of protest, embraced "sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll." This fueled a thriving counterculture determined to forge alternatives to the economic, social, and moral structures of the mainstream.