Illustration Friday - Instinct. Plus some other stuff.


So I'm trying to get back into the swing of Illustration Fridays. This weeks concept is Instinct. I'm also just trying to blog more and maybe go back through some older pieces, so I thought I'd use 4 pictures from my "Dick and Jane" series.

To sum up the project briefly, I think it's crap that depictions of men doing "traditional women's work" (cleaning, cooking, child-raising) is often emasculating. That the men are somehow, less manly for doing such things. I think it devalues the work that many women do and it lets men (in general) off the hook for learning how to do these tasks that are essential to maintaining a home and family.

Since the biggest way to effect change (in my opinion) is to start young, I took some of the old "Dick and Jane" stories and re-illustrated them, turning all the female characters to male ones. So Mom becomes Dad, Jane becomes Johny, etc.

How these relate to IF? I hope these illustrate (haha?) that divisions in labor that run along gender lines, are NOT instinctual.




And now for everyone's favorite part: the gratuitous pet photo! (I'd also like to say, that I still can't spell gratuitous correctly after all these GPPs. Thank god for spell check). Today's GPP comes courtesy of Katie and Rhiannon. I thought this one was super funny. Rhiannon is being a beast! (grrrr…) and doing pushups, while Oliver attempts to…help her? thwart her? make her laugh so she falls and crushes him? It is a mystery. But it's also super cute!


This reminds me, so that the GPPs aren't all of Aggie (I think she's cute, but I understand not everyone holds the same opinon), if you have your own GPP and would like me to use them, please send them to me! You can email them to: julia at julialutgendorf dot com.

~JML

5 comments:

  1. I LOVE those illustrations. I'm one of those people who flips through my nephews' books to see if genders are equally represented (or at least given a reasonable nod) performing stereotypically gender-bound roles. The one that stands out most right now is the photographic book about TRUCKS the two-year old had...I had to flip allllll the way to the second-to-last page to find a picture of two little girls playing with a dumptruck, after 10 or so pages of little boys playing with firetrucks, 18-wheelers, etc...
    *claps hands* for updated Dick and Jane!

     
  2. wonderful work!

     
  3. What a great idea and post. Best IF post I've seen in ages!

     
  4. Thanks Crystal and Dianna and Andrea! Your comments mean a lot!

    I love looking at issues of gender, and I'm happy to see that things are (slowly) getting better. Though it still makes me crazy when I see some of the stuff that's out there, like an ad for a printer showing the husband sent to buy groceries and his list was a series of photos! Like he couldn't possibly find the turkey if he didn't have a picture of it in front of him.

     
  5. oh wow! I remember that series from school! Yay, I'm glad you brought them out again!
    -Jenny Bunns