OUIL401 - Front Magazine

I think the articles and photos in Front magazine are a prime example of every day activites being sexualised. I think this is one of the main things I wanna focus on for my project, showing just how ridiculous it is to sexualise things that just aren't sexy. Like eating your breakfast, or riding a bike, NO women looks how these magazines portray them when they're doing these things, I know that it is meant to be sexualised and exaggerated because it's a professional photo for a magazine, but I think it creates high expectations for women to look perfect all the time.

What the hell is that. The most un-sexy post in existence. But oh, wait! there's a hint of vaj, there we go. Now it's classed as sexy.

OUIL401 - Women doing mundane things

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2574542/Multitasking-Kylie-Jenner-remains-cell-makes-gas-station-visit-black-T-Shirt-leggings.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2574358/Nicki-Minaj-surprises-fans-posts-series-naked-shower-selfies-Instagram.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2574410/Jennifer-Garner-slips-heels-rare-day-NYC-Ben-Affleck-does-daddy-duties-LA.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2574524/Kirsten-Dunst-flashes-black-bra-purple-dress-dinner.html

For some reason the media seem to love to create stories and headlines out of celebrities (usually female) doing completely mundane and normal things, like walking their dog or taking their children to school or not stepping in a puddle. I think this definitely stems from the obsession with sexualising everything that women do, being obsessed with women looking perfect all the time and criticising women for not looking perfect when they are doing normal real life things.

Holy shit, celebrities get spots just like normal people, NORMAL. PEOPLE.

Women, refusing to diet. How dare they. How dare they refuse to do something they were born to do.

OUIL401 - Sketching

I was quite stuck with how to start this project, so looking at the map I made, I decided to focus on one area that I was particularly interested in, which was pin up and burlesque. I got a couple of books out the library which looked at burlesque and I used these as reference for some initial sketching, as I'm not very good at drawing realistic looking body proportions.

I started by using ink to play around with line quality. I liked the thick and fluid lines you could create by using ink and the right type of brush and I thought that this technique would work well with the old timey aesthetic I wanted to make.

Because I was pretty bad at drawing proportional bodies I started using a media that I would be able to go over multiple times so that I didn't have to get it correct the first time round. I really liked the layering of the different colours, and using colours that didnt really go together to create contrast.

My sketching led me onto the idea that everything women do is sexualised, I intend to do more research to find academic opinions on this subject but I started writing up a list of things that I thought could be sexualised that arent initially sexy. 

Here I was practicing drawing more realistic looking anatomy by looking some reference images, I found this useful because I wanted to the style of this work to be a mixture of both stylised and realistic.

I then took some of my own reference images of different facial expressions, using some of the list of everyday activites that I wanted to include in my comic.

Here I started doing initial skecthes for my first idea, of creating two opposing comics about over sexualised women, one would be a 'normal' woman waking up and doing her normal morning routine, and the other would be a woman who wakes up into an extremely over sexualised morning routine.

I really liked the combination of these colours, Ive really enjoyed working with coloured pencils lately, because you can create really soft textures and it is easy to get a neat and controlled line quality too.

OUIL401 - 40 bits of info

5 Quotes
'When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch' - Bette Davis

'No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor' - Betty Friedan

'He- and if there is a God, I am convinced he is a he, because no woman could or would fuck things up this badly' - George Carlin

'What’s the worst possible thing you can call a woman? Don’t hold back, now.
You’re probably thinking of words like slut, whore, bitch, cunt (I told you not to hold back!), skank.
Okay, now, what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy. I’ve even heard the term “mangina.”
Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that’s not royally fucked up.'
― Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters

“He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal.” 
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

5 Statistics
45% of all employed people were women
Women still earn 15% less than men
40% of female teachers at University/83% of female teachers at Primary School
32.1% of women were employed part time compare to 9% of men
Female Presidents/Chairspersons of large companies: 3.2% female and 96.8% male

5 important dates
1911 - First ever International Woman's Day celebrated
1955 - Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on the bus and is arrested
1977 - Nigerian women gain the right to vote and discrimination on the grounds of sex or marital status is prohibited by law in Canada
1928 - In the UK women gained equal voting rights to men.
1974 - Family planning clinics could provide single women with the contraceptive pill

5 People
Frida Kahlo - Painter known and praised for her depicition of the female form
Dorothy Hodgkin - A Nobel Prize winning Chemist
Doris Lessing - Humanist writer criticised for her 'unladylike' depiction of women as angry and aggressive
Marie Curie - First women to recieve a Nobel Prize
Coco Channel - One of the most innovative fashion designers of the 20th Century

5 Images

Dave Imss's Roller Derby photography

Kate or Die's comic

Hilarious vehicle.

Pussy Riot.