Art enhances life and demonstrates the fluctuation of life experiences. Creativity can produce raw emotion and the ability for others to access this humanity, in ways words cannot always reach or that the individual cannot speak. The experience of other individuals is sometimes difficult to empathize with, but art can encapsulate the feeling of the moment while engaging with the viewer. Art transcends past barriers and tells the stories of the human experience. Resistance is in expression and empathy. When sexual violence is embedded into the fabric of society, artistic expression can be used as a form of healing to process the trauma of sexual violence and lifetime misogyny. 

Misogyny in Art and Culture

Rows of unkind truths are reflected within every art gallery one visits and the music one consumes. The saying "life imitates art and art imitates life" can be applied to joy and liberation but also pain and trauma. Life has both and art expresses both. Art is a mirror of the artist, their environment, and the viewer. Once an artwork is released to an audience, their interpretation is now a part of the artwork's story. For some art there is an endless conversion of 'why?' and 'what does this mean?' but the answer usually describes the viewer's experience more than the artist's. Art discloses a perspective, finding what it means to the artist is like reading their diary, understanding their world while seeing one's own. Art finds the language to describe the truths of many who under the patriarchy has not had the position to scream out and be heard. 

Misogyny affects everyone's ability to find empathy. An unfortunate symptom of living within a patriarchal society is having an internalized hatred for anything feminine. This of course translates into art and culture, occasionally even teaching the hatred or validation of the misogyny within the culture. The author of Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault in Popular Culture, Laura Finley (2016) explains that most media has "...an implicit social sanction normalizing the violence of the dominator/victim relationship. As children grow into the dominator role, acting it out in peer groups…" (p. 29). This dynamic is found in nearly all media, a specific example of this behavior being played out is in professional wrestling. It is common for the male performers to tell the audience the female performers that ‘" she had it coming" and "she deserved it" before they appear to violently assault female characters. Announcers accuse the women of "liking it" when a male character violently kisses them” (Finley, 2016). This is named by Finley as neutralizing the aggressive behavior and justifying the dominator/victim relationship, she describes this behavior as “denying responsibility, denying the victim, denying injury, appealing to higher loyalties, and condemning the condemners” (Finley, 2016). These ideas perpetuate the blaming of the victims. The constant stream of violent images and language used in media does not necessarily turn people into sex offenders and violent people, but people learn about the world from what they are exposed to. 

The misogynistic ideals of the museums carry through to the images and messages pushed forward by popular media. Researchers Kara Anne E. Rodenhizer and Katie M. Edwards, both professors at the University of New Hampshire, looked into how the dynamics of relationship and rape myths are portrayed in media, specifically pornography. They examined attitudes towards sexual violence and domestic abuse along with victimization, perpetration, and bystander nonintervention of violence in forty-three studies of adolescent and emerging adults from the years 1981–2015 (Rodenhizer & Edwards, 2017). The studies suggest that specifically men's attitudes and behaviors toward domestic violence and sexual violence are more strongly impacted by the consumption of sexually explicit media (Rodenhizer & Edwards, 2017). Of course, other factors play into sexual violence, such as environment and prior abuse of perpetrator, but without the context of the consequences of violence and the unproportionate female suffering in culture, it is easy to absorb the patriarchal gender roles while viewing this media.

The issue of disproportionate violence against women and feminine-presenting people in culture is reflected in art. The prominent perspective shown in art museums is white males: a survey of eighteen major U.S. museums found that artists included in these institutions are 85% white and 87% are men (Topaz et al., 2019). This further demonstrates that the male-centered versions of artwork that depict female subjects complying with the male fantasy and male ideals, also known as the "Male Gaze," are allowed to be given prime real estate in the stories that are preserved for posterity and shared within our culture. Thus, furthering the neglect of the stories of women and people of color to be shared and celebrated, in a non-tokenism pursuit by the museums. Art can capture historical narratives and attitudes of the human experience, including sexual violence. Routinely, the female subjects in art spanning centuries have had their images sexualization in one element or another including romanticizing sexual assault. 

Macushla Robinson (2021), a writer and curator based in New York City, currently writing a project titled All the Rapes in the Met Museum, explains that within historic male-centered art "I think we have to complicate how we talk about sexual violence," she said. "There's all this ambiguity. History has taught us, has taught me, from when I was a little girl, that to be loved looked like that" (para13).  Robinson references artworks depicting war scenes and emphasizing the heroism of men taking 'what's theirs. Other works depicted abductions; Robinson raises the question of how the conversation around those artworks takes into question how the female subject's autonomy. As those historical women could not consent, as it is in the hands of their fathers or husband (Robinson, 2021). The female body in the most praised and preserved artwork is used as a "conceptual site to demonstrate the material mastery of the world around the artist" (Robinson, 2021, Par 7) instead of documentation of the stories of the individuals depicted. When one looks past the narrative of what is being pushed by Western expectations, the stories of heroes and villains of history soon change. The resistance of those that are subjected to violence is mirrored in art and culture, they show their heroism with the power just by existing. 

Certainly, some artists actively reclaim art as a form of healing and a testament to their identity within their world. Contemporary artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya was inspired by and worked with protesters to uplift the voices of sexual assault and gender-based violence in the Asian and Pacific Islander community. Phingbodhipakkiya honors victims and survivors by printing out stories and weaving them into wire sculptures with flowers, lights, and candles. She utilizes recycled materials and flowers to represent solidarity with survivors and victims of sexual assault and violence. Phingbodhipakkiya explains that:

So much of this work is a meditation on how we can still bloom and grow after trauma,” she said. “Like the unpredictable nature of healing from trauma, the finished installation may end up being something unexpected. (Sayej, 2021, par 7) 

Building community within an art gallery, with others who understand and relate to the trauma of sexual assault, is a powerful response to the norm of viewing violence in such institutions. Phingbodhipakkiya’s work refocuses the art on the perspective of the survivor. Phingbodhipakkiya furthers the conversation on her work as an artist telling the importance of art's power to "connect to our humanity when we feel it has been stripped away, it helps us find our power and courage when we feel we have been violated or silenced," (Sayej, 2021, par 10). This work gives the opportunity to find understanding among victims and those without those experiences. This story gives hope for building community in places where it is not commonly found.   

Another artist building new perspectives in the discussion on body anatomy is Clarity Haynes. As a queer feminist artist, she represents the belief in showing the truth in her art. Later in her life and career, Haynes realized the use of creativity to reflect the experiences of sexual violence and assault, and the time spent healing after a lifetime of misogyny. Her series of topless and large individuals depict them as impenetrable forces of nature, something Haynes did not feel during the events of her attack (Haynes, 2021). She explains that she now understands how her assaults are connected to her art, and the connection to her models and reflection of power towards the feminine form helped her heal (Haynes, 2021). She tells of the feeling of wanting to laugh at the thought of her running and trying to pull up her pants and that she felt as if she was underwater and too slow.  Haynes (2021) explains processing the attack: 

My mother said, ‘One man attacked you, but another man saved you.” This should go down in some kind of book of proverbs, I think. Chicken Soup for the Soul in a chapter called “Don’t Hate Men, Hate Patriarchy”. (Haynes, para 12)

 Digesting the environment one is in and the culture that influences the actions of the 'villain' is a part of healing the wounds that are caused by misogyny. Hayes, Phingbodhipakkiya, and any other survivor of sexual assault cannot choose to change the actions of someone else and cannot necessarily choose a "safe" way of existence. The scariest part of living in a misogynistic society is that anyone could be vulnerable to the threat of violence for being perceived as feminine. Haynes' work addresses the rage after the violence, the sadness, and the hope that can grow after harnessing one's power while finding connections to others.

The artist Luzene Hill’s work is informed by her Indigenous heritage and discusses the connection between violence against native women and colonialism. Her portfolio of work is mostly performance or installation ice that encapsulates the audience in her messages of female and native empowerment. Her most recent work Enate is described by her as “In the beginning . . ."  (Hill, 2021, Par 1) which is showing her wants as being before colonization in the Americas and before the patriarchal society that came with it. The artwork shows the number of reported Native American women that are sexually assaulted each year in the form of 6956 silk taffeta female figures, each attached forming a symbolically protective cloak. The silk female figures are laid in three layers, appearing to be feather-like, all three layers representing the three times more likelihood of being sexually assaulted than other women in the United States.

 Hill's piece Retracing the Trace is focused on the isolation and forced silence that many sexual assault survivors face. Hill's personal experience of sexual assault in 1994 inspired this installation. The artwork begins with 3,780 red khipu-style Incan knots, which are a native "device made of cords," (Hill, 2021, Par 2) that are poured on top of her as she lies on the floor. When she stands her outline remains. She then pins the khipus to the walls of the gallery. Hill describes the connection to her artwork utilizing the khipu knot as "A woman is often strangled to silence and control her, and the aftermath is characterized by a different kind of enveloping disquiet.  Rape is about power and rage" (Hill, 2021, Par 2). 

Hill's art gives a unique tangibility to sexual assault and specifically the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's movement. The bright red utilized in her work feels so powerful against the white walls of an art gallery. Her voice seems so poignant in each piece, creating conversation on the many topics art and culture are too comfortable not discussing.

The creative work of artists like Phingbodhipakkiya, Haynes, and Hill all help guide the conversation on survivors of sexual assault and violence to bridge the gap between acts of violence being depicted in art and the discussion of violence in life. Having these conversations is not always easy in a culture that routinely pushes the boundaries of what sexual fantasies are acceptable in popular media. Not to say one cannot have preferences, but the issues lay in the explicit violence that is shown to a point of being desensitized to those actions or even having expectations that violence towards feminine people is normal. A lack of empathy in media is unfortunate and something to take notice of, as it is almost impossible to not consume parts of what is being represented. As shown by the artists Phingbodhipakkiya, Haynes, and Hill, taking control of how they wanted to be represented in media and finding a way to begin the discussions of violence towards feminine people by centering those most affected, is possible and a powerful act. They show that finding solace and links of connection by making artwork is mostly learning other individuals' stories while creating one's narrative. 

Translating Experiences in Art

Art is as varied as the people that create and view it. Representation of artists outside the western expectation of white male artists has continued to produce inspiring and important conversations, just not necessarily always in museums. Even though the majority of people do not typically visit art museums regularly or see art as a surface level commodity, art has impact in ways that one may go without realizing. Art inspires designs of places and objects that are utilized every day, it provokes creative thought outside the norms and translates concepts and ideals society strives for. Thus, support for artist exploring and critiquing ideals of the art world and the cultures that surround it is not just a progressive trend it is a necessity for furthering the conversation of the expectations of individuals in a more just society. Art serves as documentation of human-kind, no one should be left out. Art can come from life experiences that cannot be put into words and find a raw form of resistance that is deeply personal. Sexual violence in art and society may have had a storied past, with misogyny being the author but artists can find truths of their own with creativity and hope. There is resistance to healing and finding the stories from one's authenticity.