“An Irrelevant Older Woman” (2023 |
photography + digital illustration | 11x14 inches)
This piece is as inspired by message sent to me via my IG DMs, not a dating app…
Under patriarchy, a woman’s proximity to a man gives her relevance. As she ages, her social capital diminishes. She becomes invisible. All she can do to save her from the obscurity of irrelevance is the heteronormative coupling with a man.
The art in the second slide of this post adds the line “…lives happily ever after”, because irrelevance is about perspective.
Maybe being/becoming irrelevant to the male gaze is a benefit at the micro/individual level.
But thinking more critically, irrelevance has real consequences which result in a framework of laws, policies and cultural narratives that perpetuate systemic equities causing harm to people labeled “irrelevant”. Those who decide who is irrelevant and who is valuable in a society hold the power.
The dismantling of Roe v Wade, book banning, don’t say gay bill, police violence, general lack of empathy for the most vulnerable during covid - all these have one thing in common: the people they impact most are considered less than, disposable, irrelevant. And the laws created, passed and upheld by the oppressor class reflect this mindset.
Irrelevance is violence.