ABSTRACT
Along with feminism, one of the greatest influences upon the practice of art history in the 1980s has been the advent and application of postmodern theory. This book overviews the postmodern critique of traditional art history, a critique largely shared with and in part introduced by feminism. It considers the ways in which feminist art-historical practice in the last decade has simultaneously extended and challenged the tenets of postmodernism. The book reveals the extent to which art, through its imagery and its associations and through its cultural status, has functioned as an instrument of sex-role socialization, helping to create and reinforce a norm of social behavior for women in a patriarchal world. It examines the cultural production and exaggeration of gender characteristics in a deconstructive spirit. The book explores the problems of women artists who sought to evade or diffuse essentialist stereotyping.
