ABSTRACT
Griselda Pollock's analysis of the way art history is written relates to the writing of history more generally, and questions why women are written out of historical accounts. "Vision and Difference remains amongst the most important and thought-provoking feminist interventions in art history". Pollock's work is designed to demonstrate that feminism is not an optional extra for courses that would otherwise be male-dominated and that simply studying female artists does not immediately make a course feminist. The attention that Vision and Difference receives is mainly based on its status as a major work of feminist criticism. She examines ideology so rigorously that social or political concerns could overwhelm any focus on artworks, resulting in a course more like cultural or political studies than art history. Vision and Difference still encourages students to study the ideology behind the way art history is formulated and taught.
