For the year ending March 2019, an estimated 1.6 million women across the UK experienced violence, including domestic violence, rape, forced marriage, sexual exploitation and other forms of abuse and harassment. Launched in 2019, our No More Violence against Women campaign encourages WI members to take action to end the scourge of violence against women. Tackling domestic violence has been a longstanding concern for the WI. Throughout our history, the WI has campaigned to make sure that women and girls can live the lives they choose, free from the fear of abuse.

In support of this campaign and Not in my Name event, the NFWI, in partnership with the National Gallery, is proud to offer members a unique opportunity to attend a special, one-off speaker event with the Artist, Luisa-Maria MacCormack.

27 November 2020, 7-8pm Violence Against Women in Western Art with Luisa-Maria MacCormack

Why is there SO much violence women depicted in Western Art History?

From the many rapes of goddesses and nymphs in paintings of Greek Mythology to nineteenth-century Orientalist images of slave markets, violence against women is so ubiquitous in art that it has its own name: ‘the heroic rape genre.’

Artist Luisa-Maria MacCormack of The Big Art Herstory Project looks at the reasons behind the victim-blaming, romanticised, colonial and male-oriented approach of some of the most famous and troubling paintings ever made. She’ll also consider interventions and activist projects by feminist artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, who have added their voice to an ongoing debate.

Image credit: Artemisia Gentileschi, Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, about 1615-17. @The National Gallery