Last edited Sat Oct 13, 2018, 12:02 PM - Edit history (1)

I know you think this is funny, but it's not. This is the kind of thing that's helped keep women out of powerful positions since the death of the matriarchy.

Have you ever seen a more emotion-driven human being, male or female, than Donald Trump? Wonder when he gets his period?

. . . based on my own experience, over many years, comfortably working around, working with, and working for women who already occupy "powerful positions" in both law and government that it is a humorless response like yours that is more counterproductive in the long run. But, yes, I'm a guy, so what do I know?

I do actually agree with you that the comment isn't "funny," but it isn't funny because it's trite, that's all.

That's a dreadful bit of sculpture, by the way, to my eye. Proficiently executed, to be sure, but utterly devoid of any artistic merit, which I suppose is to be expected when "art" is used solely as a vehicle to advance a social, political, or ideological point of view. But, again, that's just me. One ironclad truth I've come to appreciate with advancing age is that there's no accounting for taste.

Art has always been a vehicle to express sociological, political and ideological beliefs since it's about communication.

Of one kind or other.

It's fine if you don't think the sculpture piece is for you, you've already noted it's "proficiently executed". I gather from that technically you don't have a problem with it, your problem is how the idea is communicated or maybe the idea itself. Maybe it's too political for you. I dunno.

But your dislike is only indicative of your preferences, and not a reflection of whether the piece, objectively, has artistic merit.

I find the piece devoid of artistic merit for the same reason I would find a proficiently executed piece of Soviet-era "socialist realism" sculpture devoid of artistic merit. But that's just me.

I don't dispute that the visual arts have "always been a vehicle to express sociological, political and ideological beliefs." It's just that I find that, very often, if not perhaps not inevitably, art that seeks to communicate beliefs that fall into those categories is usually pretty ugly stuff.

I'm no art critic, so I'll ask, in a non-rhetorical fashion, is there some sociological, political, or ideological belief being communicated by, say, Monet's Water Lilies series? In my aforementioned professed ignorance, I would venture to say no. Which is why, to my mind, such works are beautiful, while this sculpture is not so much "art" as it is a shrill statement, harsh on the eye rather than being harsh to the ear. As such statements go, I'd rather read them.

But whatever floats one's boat, I guess.

because it is trite. In other words, women are tired of being told they're complaining/uncooperative/angry/your pick because they are menstruating OVER AND OVER AND OVER. That's how things get trite, through overuse.

So it isn't the fact that your comment, while utterly predictable (not from you; I don't know you, but you can bet some man was going to post something like it), is tired but that we are tired of that sexist attitude.

Reminds me of O-Ren Ishii from Kill Bill ... the scene where she leaps on the conference table and beheads that guy who laughed at her.