Face + Female Tag

Simpson deliberately cuts off the subject’s face, leaving only their mouth and chin in the photos. Without the face, the viewer is left with a body in a masculine, ill-fitted suit; the viewer must look to the ‘female’ tag for clarification as to the sex of the subject. If the tag above the images was removed, the subject of the piece remains sexually ambiguous. The ‘female’ tag is an essential part of the artwork, despite being the smallest characteristic of the piece, as without this clarification, it would negate Simpson’s challenge of feminine gender stereotypes and codes of dress for women.

 

Gestures

The gestures the subject is making are socially constructed to be viewed as masculine gestures. The middle two photos could be seen as the most predominantly “male” gestures as the subject’s hands are centered around the groin. Again, only because of the female tag are we aware that the subject is a female, thus challenging the idea of these “masculine” hand positions. Simpson is potentially pointing to how society has built constructs not just of what a female should wear or look like, but also how we physically act – i.e., the way women sit, the way their legs are positioned, hand gestures, etc. By arranging the subject in these positions with these specific hand gestures, Simpson is directly challenging not only the idea of femininity but how femme bodies present themselves.
 
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