2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

Gender ideology has a strong visual component, from the standards of “beauty” to the appropriate attire it attempts to dictate for women over time. Since the nineteenth century, photography has served not only to prescribe these ideas, but also as a means of women’s self-representation. As sitters and image-makers, women have used photography to negotiate definitions of femininity and sexuality across class and race.

This panel examines women both in front of and behind the camera, prompting us to consider the ways in which visions of femininity and respectability evolved over the last 150 years. Each paper addresses the commodification of the female body, considering the ways in which women's bodies were dressed, visualized, and hidden. While Kathleen Casey and Krista Cooke examine American and Canadian women's portraits, Shannon Harry Walsh analyzes a female photographer who not only photographed nude women but taught them how to photograph themselves. Collectively this panel explores the distance between the photographer and the subject, the author and the audience, asking: What do images of women’s bodies reveal and conceal? What might these images have meant to their subjects?

Our chair Cynthia Patterson will bring her knowledge of images of women in 19^th century American periodicals to our discussion, and commenter Laura Prieto will employ her expertise on professional female artists. This panel brings together scholars from different disciplines in and outside academia to continue “difficult conversations” about the roles of visual culture in women’s lives.