I turn the page again. I turn the page once more. There is Mira Schor's Cunt and Penis from 1993. By the time I have looked at these artworks I am squirming in discomfort. I realize my unease over the popular word used to describe my own genitalia indicates how deeply ingrained is the cultural shame about our body parts.
Sex is indeed a profoundly important and deeply political issue.
These politics are manifest in the debates that have surrounded The Dinner Party , which I would like to position in this catalogue and exhibition as part of the ongoing history of feminist art practice and theory in the United States and Britain. How does she accomplish this in the exhibition, I wonder. I turn to the end of the catalogue, to the Checklist of the Exhibition, to survey the manner in which the exhibition is organized. Cheri Gaulke's This Is My Body documents a 1982 performance in which she linked traditional Christian misogyny with the Western dominance over and ultimate devaluing of nature. Feminism has employed diverse approaches to challenge history's exclusions.