Not Gender, But Struggle in the Frame: Political Geography of Resistance in Women's Photography

Abstract

The increasing representation of women photographers in the field of visual arts is often read through gender-based identity politics. This approach limits the production of women artists only to the experience of “being a woman” and pushes their relationship with the political and historical context to the background. However, women’s photographic practice has often emerged from broader political and class struggles; it has carried a desire to reveal social reality and transform it through visual testimony. The historical context of women’s photography should be positioned on the grounds of struggle, class and ideology, without being reduced to the representation of identity. It should not be overlooked that the frame is not about gender, but about the political lines of resistance, domination and visual disclosure. The global and local examples examined here reveal not only representation, with their class, cultural, ethnic and ideological diversity, but also the political nature of the visual field in women’s struggle. In this context, in addition to spatial/ideological structures such as borders, migration and state violence; the representation of the body, memory and labor in the productions of women photographers will also be examined.