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ings and they weren’t. They seemed to have a
good time, and related to the drawings im-
mediately. Now, it is not necessary to have a
good time when viewing art, but there was
blanket recognition of the issues.

When | looked in the newspaper | noticed
that you could apply sexual politics, directly or
indirectly, to almost every image in the adver-
tisement world; every image implies sexual
promises. My original fantasy was that | would
have enough money to take out a full page ad
in the L.A. Times, and just change the images
a little bit. Obviously the most political thing
about that was my fantasy about how many
people | could reach that way. It is the nature
of good political art to be recognizable and
understandable by a lot of people and maybe

at a visceral level too. . . . Political art is often
satirical, and probably most effective at that
level.

The exhibition provided an opportunity to
witness the heightened impact of contemporary
feminist art when viewed by a “non-art” audi-
ence—a cross-section of middle America that
normally would not encounter art, and specifi-
cally by a female audience alienated from femi-
nism. (The negative response came primarily
from women 9) It can also be seen as a test case
for implementing a long-desired goal —bringing
art into a public daily work environment.

Had the show at Aerospace been exhibited in
any number of established or alternative gallery
spaces, it probably would not have caused un-
usual debate, and certainly it would not have
prompted any doubt about the artistic merit of
the work.10 In the Cafeteria Conference Rooms
of Aerospace, however, the exhibit infiltrated a
male environment that ordinarily would not dis-
play women’s work made from a feminist per-
spective and certainly would not give it public
acclaim. The work was predominantly consid-
ered scandalous; it engendered passionate ob-
jections and firm negative judgments. The show
was labeled pornography rather than art by
people who were unlikely ever to have consid-
ered what is or isn’t art.

This disclaimer was the protesters” attempt to
dismiss such threatening and upsetting mate-
rial. Casting it as pornography implied that the
art lacked any real esthetic value and therefore
need not be taken seriously. The level of naive-
té of the critical responses—when opposed to
the more sophisticated criticism to which we
are accustomed from much of the art world—
was refreshing in its directness. One letter of
protest stated:

| object to the Art Exhibition. .. .1 find it de-
grading. As a woman, and hopefully a lady, |
find it extremely offensive. . . .| am unable to

lower my sights to the gutter level of this ex-
hibit. In my opinion, it is lewd, vulgar, obscene
and immoral. Since when did good taste and
modesty go out-of-style?1

In another letter, signed by 36 people—
almost a petition—the art was called:

.. .in poor taste, bad character, and a definite
infringement on the rights of all women and
men who give sex the dignity, respect and
honor that was intended for the human race.

The Aerospace Corporation has drastically
changed its practices since the 1960s to allow
this type of “smut” to be exhibited, and the
employees were encouraged through desk-to-
desk distribution and advertising to view the
exhibition.

We are sure that with much less expense to
the Company, the representatives. . .could
have arranged for a display of pornography,
pictures and books from one of the adult book-
stores in the Los Angeles Area, and at a lower
insurance premium. . . . The Aerospace Wom-
en’s Committee does not speak for all of the
female'employees, as there are those of us who
still adhere to the old principle that we were
liberated immediately when we were born in
America, we enjoy being treated as a woman,
and we are definitely Miss or Mrs. and not Ms.12

Clearly these female viewers at Aerospace
“saw” in the art their own worst fears of femi-
nism. Their objections, though focused on the
exhibition, were rooted in their alienation from
the organized women’s movement. Confronted
by art that dealt with an oppression familiar in
most of their lives, real images that did not
correspond to the illusion of the American
dream presented a powerful threat.

The art was perceived as offensive precisely
because it was not placed in a neutralizing en-
vironment like a gallery, where viewers can
easily hide behind anonymity. The art invaded
their own daily working sphere where it threat-
ened how they were viewed in their professional
positions. Brought into the work context, the art
reflected more directly upon them. The height-
ened emotional reactions caused a strong need
to disassociate themselves verbally from the
picture of womanhood presented in the show.

While identification with female experiences
and values is threatening in any situation in a
patriarchal society, such identification may be
virtually impossible when introduced into a
work environment dominated by male values
and power. Such an environment, by implica-
tion, and as a condition for the possibility of
working there, demands a woman’s identifica-
tion with patriarchy over a recognition of her
own oppression. To admit that what was ex-
pressed in the art is real —women’s powerless-
ness and powerfulness, their sexual feelings and
experiences, and the fact that women are rape
victims—is to shatter the very myth that has
sustained traditional womanhood all along. It is
admitting publicly to an embarrassing, private
part of woman’s experience, which she has
attempted to conceal even from herself in an
effort to preserve the “human dignity” of which