Fatima Franks
Influenced by Immanuel Kant’s theory of objectifying of women; Mackinnon and Andrea Dworkin state, “The situation of gender inequality which troubles our societies and is so tightly linked to the objectification of women is created and sustained by men’s consumption of pornography...the sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or words also includes women dehumanized as sexual objects...” (MacKinnon 1987,176)
Fatima Franks attempts to investigate and re-familiarize her history and culture with a new sensibility by broadening her investigation of the female subject matter; and by questioning and illustrating the many repeated historical and current affairs with relation to stigmatization. The stigma of the mark of disgrace or shame or any sort is associated with women in literature, film, factual or imagined scenarios or history. The concept of whether women are valuable or not comes from either condoning of self-judgment set by opinion of the culture or from the viewpoints of men. In her works, she explores the symbol of the ‘doll’ as relaying information through objectification and sexualization. Her works draw in many of the morally problematic contexts of popular perceptions towards the female gender which are still silently persisting in the current modern culture.
The understanding of these issues hence; blur the lines of geographic locations and conformities of an East or Western culture but rather through a common commentary which is to be felt at a visceral level.
