The Guerrilla Girls are a socially active group of women that originated in 1985. Their identities are hidden by gorilla masks. Their group of women came about because I guess they were tired of women not being noticed. In 1982, the Coalition of Womens Art Organizations reported that only 2% of museum exhibitions by living artists were devoted to women. The Guerrilla Girls took it upon themselves to start doing something about this. They started plastering New York City with posters, publicly questioning the inequity with which women are represented, exhibited, and funded in the arts.
The Guerrilla Girls have produced posters, stickers, books, printed projects, and actions that expose sexism and racism in politics, the art world, film, and the culture at large. They use humor to convey information, provoke discussion, and show that feminists can be funny. They were the gorilla masks to focus on the issues rather than their personalities. Dubbing themselves the conscience of culture, they declare themselves feminist counterparts to the mostly male tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Batman, and the Lone Ranger. Their work has been passed around the world by kindred spirits. The Guerrilla Girls are an extremely proud group of women and I would be proud to be a part of them.
The Guerrilla Girls believe feminism is a fundamental way of looking at the world and they recognize that half of us are female and all of us should be equal. I could not agree more. It’s a fact of history that for centuries women have not had the rights and privileges of men and I believe it’s time for that to end. I wholeheartedly believe in everything that the Guerrilla Girls stand for.
By Paige Horowitz
By Paige Horowitz