Expressions of violence against women in contemporary world artfrom 1950s to today

Violence is a form of damaging behavior that causes pain or suffering of an individual and is also restrains the individual's freedom through physical, sexual, psychological or financial abuse. A patriarchal culture accepts and recognizes male hegemony over others and enforces other members of society to live within stereotypical roles. Male hegemony gives males a distinguished power; therefore for women it makes life intolerable, difficult, and oppressed through restrictions. Violence functions as a form of punishment or preventative measure for possible actions against hegemonic rules determined by male dominance. All over the world, we observe protests and civil actions by social activists as well as coercive measures by government organizations against negative consequences of violence; which is a human rights infringement. Civil and governmental declarations and public manifestations also have been released repeatedly to inform and educate society about violence. The societies also have not been completely silent against violence. However, it is often seen that individuals are unable to show the same reactions when violence happens in their close families. Children and women are the typical victims of violence that has become a major social problem. The issue has also been observed in art throughout history. While at the beginning, conventionally war scenes were depicted in many paintings; later French Revolution and Cold War influenced depiction of violence-centered artworks at a greater extent. For the first time, the woman, who was formerly the objectified theme of paintings started to become subject who creates the artworks but not the object or theme itself. Through French Revolution the conventional social roles, patriarchal structure and male hegemony were demolished which formed a zeitgeist in which women has become more recognized in art. When the history of art is examined, it is seen that artists create works containing violence cases in almost every period. Through the influence of Feminism, starting by 1900s, the leitmotif of violence has started to become increasingly more prevalent until today. This prevailing new taste resulted formation of many artworks based on violence against women. The emerging activist reaction that is aiming to inform society and to create a social consciousness showed itself within many art forms including painting, sculpture, photography, installations, graphic designs, video and performance arts. In a sense, we could also infer that, violence has become an instrument for the artists who portray experienced constraints and pains in artworks.