ABSTRACT
Engaged criticism requires actively seeking our own women-centered terms, expressions, and roots; it recognizes the essential difference between being merely "feminist" and "aware" and being actively involved in revolt against a sexist society. This chapter undertakes a multilevel analysis of a number of issues that have arisen in this context. It examines the "woman question" within the confines of a sexist art history created primarily for a white male audience. This requires an understanding that traditional art history is one in which women's contributions and those of others outside the mainstream are devalued or classified as inferior to those of white males. Using representative examples through a survey of these contributions, the chapter summarizes these showing similarities and differences among nineteenth and twentieth century art historians, critics, and writers. The censorship afforded the works of Eunice Golden, Joan Semmel, Judith Bernstein, and Sylvia Sleigh serves to underline the double standard when it comes to patriarchal morals and the sexual revolution.
