To See and be Seen: What can a woman do with a camera (phone)?

Abstract

This paper investigates how women can be empowered as photographers and visual storytellers and gain greater representation in visual culture. By analysing two historically divergent feminist photography projects, this paper argues that women’s diverse authorial perspectives are enabled by combining theory and practice in the formation of a critical counter-visuality and a process of self-realisation. The paper explores how women enact their visual resistance through the interrelated processes of seeing and being seen and draws on Jo Spence’s critical visual practice to explore photography that subverts expectations and creates opportunities for alternative modes of representation. Applying Spence’s key deconstructive tools of making visible and narrating the image, the paper maps out ways in which education and collective agency create the conditions for women’s participation and influence within photography.