Dripping pink and blue

Seeing the unseen of patriarchy through the Feminist Museum Hack

Abstract

In response to calls by feminist cultural theorists to develop means to unmask patriarchy, the system of power that lies at the heart of museums that maintain problematic hierarchical binaries of masculinity and femininity, we designed the Feminist Museum Hack. The Hack draws on theories of representation, feminist critical discourse analysis and visual methodologies/literacy to operate as a critical and creative practice that can be adapted to any museum context. The primary aim of the Hack – a methodology and pedagogy – is to provide a lens through which adults can see the unseen of patriarchy and how it hides so cleverly in plain sight in the museum’s practices of representation. In this article, we use examples of how we have used the Hack as researchers and educators in various museum settings to expose, decode and disrupt the hegemonic gendered messages in the images, displays, curatorial statements, labels and even in object placement and stagecrafting. We also show how the Hack functions as a practice of ‘direct agency’, a means to re-write and engage with museum narratives. We argue that the Hack is an important and innovative practice because it turns museums into spaces of ‘pedagogic possibility’ – sites where we can learn new strategies of feminist opposition to counter the male gaze and its ability to define women’s lives.