The Female Gaze in Art and Photography

Historically, male artists have re-presented women through their eyes. The Female Gaze in Art and Photography redresses this imbalance, looks at art through women’s eyes. It shines a light on the work of twenty contemporary women artists and photographers from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and United States of America, placing these creatives and their works center stage.

The Female Gaze in Art and Photography offers an empathetic re-presentation of women, men and those identifying as LGBQTIA+. The art and photography covered is also thematic, addressing issues affecting our lives today: love and loss; lifecycle of women; motherhood; gender, sexual and racial identity; the fractured self; autonomy and agency; strength, resilience and vulnerability; relationships; racism; marginalization and diversity; feminism; migration and dispossession; and climate change among others.

The Female Gaze sits alongside and is a valuable addition to Charlotte Jansen’s Girl on Girl and Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men, showcasing the talent of women creatives in today’s world of art and photography.

Anita Selzer is an acclaimed author of thirteen books in adult and children’s non-fiction. Her interest is in women, gender and culture, and history. She has earned a BA, Dip Ed, Master of Education, PhD in Education and Grad Dip in Women’s Studies at universities in Melbourne, and was awarded the Peter Fensham Education Scholarship 1989 at Monash University for her PhD work on gender, history and education. She was also the recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA, now renamed RTP - research training program) and the Postgraduate Publication Award for a paper based on her PhD work. Selzer has been a lecturer in politics and English and worked in women’s affairs in the Victorian Premier’s Department as an administrative officer. She has also been a book reviewer for Cambridge University Press and the peer-reviewed journal Gender and Education.