After being given the prompt “Boundaries,” photographer Allaire Bartel created this evocative set of images about the reality of being “a woman in a man’s world.”
photo by Allaire Bartel
photo by Allaire Bartel
photo by Allaire Bartel
photo by Allaire Bartel
Bartel writes:
I was particularly determined to express the idea that oppression of women does not just occur in extreme isolated incidents (violent rape and physical abuse) but can also be felt in lesser forms during the day to day.
In this series you will see one woman, an average young professional, depicted in routine daily situations. The concept of male entitlement is represented by male arms and hands performing a variety of actions that are overwhelming intrusive on her body and her life. In each situation she maintains a blank expression, a visual choice that demonstrates how conditioned we as women have become to accept this atmosphere as excusable and even normal. A slightly hyper-real post processing style was implemented to emphasize that these actions, whether large or small, all perpetuate the idea that “woman” does not mean the same thing as “human.”
Bartel has more information about the project on her website, as well as a series of videos describing the behind-the-scenes details of each shoot. She also talks more about the impetus of the project in this intro video, in which she explains, “We starting thinking: Why don’t you react [to minor acts of sexism]? It’s hard to put up a fight. You have to pick your battles everyday. We just realized [women] have become conditioned to these things happening to us. And whether they’re welcome or not, they’re just normal. And that was really very sad.”
