ABSTRACT
We ask for revelations from others, but we reveal little or nothing of ourselves; we make others vulnerable, but we ourselves remain invulnerable. (Behar, 1993, p. 273)
Yolanda Fodora’s drawing that dons the cover of Women Writing Culture, a collection edited by Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon (1995), portrays a bare-breasted woman seated at a table, leaning into it, writing. She clutches a pencil in her hand, and her arm brushes gently against her nipples. The coloring of her body is purple, and her hair is multicolored in lavender, pinks, yellows, and greens. Different-shaped eyes look out from behind her where the sun has set in shades of bright orange and red, and a full blue moon is out. To Behar (1995), this drawing reminded her that most often in anthropology, bare breasts belong to the Other woman, “the native woman somewhere else, the woman who does not write, the Kung! woman, the Balinese woman, the National Geographic woman…breasts that can be seen, exposed, pictured, brought home, and put into books” (p. 1).
