Banksy is a woman: gender and femininity as displayed in graffiti
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 28/10/2015

Erin Osborne-Martin
SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND
By and large, our default image of a graffiti artist is male. Unless the work is signed with a feminine name or deals with ‘feminine’ themes, most people tend to assume that the people behind this largely anonymous art form are men. In Roman Pompeii, where graffiti is sometimes signed and gender is easier to identify than it often is today, we can see that much of the output is created by men and a significant portion of it is about women. But there are also examples of graffiti created by Roman women, from prostitutes talking about their clients to wives discussing their husbands and domestic lives. Themes of gender and identity are equally present in modern graffiti. In particular, by using graffiti to subvert advertising – itself a commentary on femininity and womanhood – female artists are able to negotiate gender roles within the public landscape.