ABSTRACT
According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome, the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. A mans presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. Every woman’s presence regulates what is and is not ‘permissible’ within her presence. Every one of her actions—whatever its direct purpose or motivation—is also read as an indication of how she would like to be treated. The nude in European oil painting is usually presented as an admirable expression of the European humanist spirit. This spirit was inseparable from individualism. In the art-form of the European nude the painters and spectator-owners were usually men and the persons treated as objects, usually women. This unequal relationship is so deeply embedded in our culture that it still structures the consciousness of many women. They do to themselves what men do to them.
