ABSTRACT
In 1988, the core subjects in Griselda Pollock's Vision and Difference, namely those of feminism, femininity, and art history, were not at all revolutionary. The chapter on "Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity" began to explore how women were presented in relation to the space around them. It also considered the role of women as viewers in the gallery space, a concept that Pollock built upon in her later work Encounters in the Virtual Feminist Museum. The fact that she took the social and political context of the work into account, meant that she was able to produce readings that explored the social and gender inequalities implicit in these works. In her chapter on the spaces of femininity, for example, she considers the spaces in which women were depicted in Impressionist art, and demonstrates how this connects to the position of women in society at the time.
