Feminists don masks, grab mics

There was a gorilla sighting on campus when writer Gertrude Stein and artist Alma Thomas made… There was a gorilla sighting on campus when writer Gertrude Stein and artist Alma Thomas made an appearance wearing gorilla masks.

As they both scratched their armpits in an apelike manner to welcome all who came to see them, Stein bantered about her weight and Thomas joked about her old age and even about how difficult it was to wear reading glasses overtop a mask.

In reality, Gertrude Stein and Alma Thomas are both dead. Two women from the Guerrilla Girls feminist group adopted the names of these famous women, just as all the members in the group chose names of dead, notable women to gain spiritual guidance and to keep their real identities secret.

These Guerrilla Girls were the ones who appeared on campus while the Pitt Campus Women’s Organization sponsored the event. They spoke about their ideas and used humor to express them.

To start, the women came on stage and asked questions such as, “Who is a feminist?” and if peoples’ sexual orientations were undecided. The crowd cheered and responded to all of the introductory questions.

Throughout the course of the event, the Guerrilla Girls used humorous links from their Web site, www.ggbb.org, which was projected onto a large viewing screen. The audience actively took part in a “bitch or broad” quiz about workplace politics. The audience laughed as each question was read and shouted out the answers.

The video “Wanna be Famous” also earned laughs. It focused on things that a woman has to do to be successful in the art world. The video advised that women should live in obscurity for 30 years, pray for a female art curator because a male one will not be interested in their work, and, jokingly, to not be a sissy, but instead be willing to die. The film said that the art world wants tragedy and that death is tragedy.

They also showed different formats of “letters to bad bosses” that any woman can send anonymously and even letters the Guerrilla Girls can write if someone so desires. Topics ranged from beauty bias to discrimination to overtime.

An example letter was read out loud from the “Personal Inflictions: When your employer tells you more than you need to know” group.

This example received uproarious laughter from the crowd with comments like, “Next time you start to talk about your daughter’s Little League game or complain about flying coach to your vacation in Fiji, try to remember the last time this person told you about her personal life. If the answer is never, maybe it’s time to shut up.”

The night did take on a more serious tone at times, though. The two women shared statistics that the group has kept since 1985. Some of these included information about how few pieces by women artists appear in museums and about the number of female art students and of female art professors in school art departments.

The Guerrilla Girls have found that there is a decent amount of female art students, but a small percentage of female art professors, which means that these girls are only receiving a male perspective in the classroom.

They also discussed problems within the Pittsburgh area with the audience, such as unequal pay for women administrators and professors and sexist comments within the Communications Department. They also pointed out that Pitt has no minor or major for Women’s Studies – just a certificate.

They do believe that there is hope for Pittsburgh, though, in combating sexism. They mentioned how the Allegheny County Girls as Grant Makers Program got Abercrombie ‘ Fitch to pull their “Who needs brains when you have these” shirt from their line.

The Guerrilla Girls formed in 1985 to fight sexism in the art world, and their battle has branched out into other areas including war and fashion. They decided to include humor in their messages, thinking that this would appeal to more people.

The Gertrude Stein Guerrilla Girl said, “Humor was our best weapon. It was our key to success.”