by Catherine Leahy

Created on: May 28, 2008

According to their website the Guerrilla Girls are feminist masked avengers in the tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Wonder Woman and Batman'. Anonymity is important for this group of activists, hence the gorilla masks they wear which not only serve to hide the identities of the women involved but also point up a humorous and challenging side to their activities. Their adoption of names of dead women artists also serves to hide their real identities whilst reminding the public of female artists that otherwise keep disappearing. This anonymity also serves to focus attention on the issues they raise, rather than on their own individual careers, motives or personalities.

The Guerrilla Girls take on stereotypes and use clever humor to subvert them, they point out to the world the prejudice and discrimination that exist in culture and they re-invigorate feminism for a new generation of women who are no longer willing to accept a second-class status. Their tactics of actions, poster and billboard campaigns, lecture tours and book publishing serve to highlight issues that traditional feminist protests tried to change through making demands. The Guerrilla Girls don't make demands, they use highly effective publicity tools to expose the hypocrisy, sexism and racism at the heart of our cultural industries and by shaming the institutions and organizations hope to empower women to not only seek change but to actively interrogate the worth of these institutions and how they represent us.

The Guerrilla Girls expose the sexism, racism and corruption in the art world and in politics, film and pop culture. They do this by staging outrageous protests and other publicity stunts, mostly visual actions that challenge the viewer or passer-by to rethink how and why women artists have been excluded from the art world. Another of their aims is to make feminism funny and funky and they have succeeded in drawing attention to the remarkable dearth of women achieving success in art despite the large numbers of women involved in art either as artists, models or as workers in the art industry. Their most well known poster campaign points out that Less than five percent of the artists in the Modern Arts section are women, but 85 percent of the nudes are female' and asks if women can only get into the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York if they are naked. Other statistics they have quoted bring the message home Even the U.S. Senate is more progressive than Hollywood.

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