Pauline Boty It’s A Mans’ World II 1964-66 |IA|

Pauline Boty created ‘It’s A Mans’ World II’ between 1964 and 1965 at a time where feminism was rising back up to fight for equality within representation in society. Boty presents the divide between the genders within the collage with a black line separating two sections each summing up the importance of the sex within society. On the left panel a beautiful nature landscape fills the background whilst cutouts of pornographic images of women are placed in the foreground. They are anonymous and the focus is on the female body. This shows objectification and sexualisation of women. Boty suggests that society does not see anything else within women than that as she links the foreground and background through showing what people considered natural: landscape and sexualisation of the female body.

The panel on the right however portrays men that have had an impact on history, men that have some importance. Every single one has a name. The composition does not follow any clear structure and yet you can see that the female pictures are within a rectangle forming one shape and they blend into one another. In contrast to that there is no foreground and background in the right side. Another difference is that items of technology can be found such as planes, rockets and buildings. If you look closely, there is a famous sculpture of Hermes by Praxiteles from 4BC however, the cutout within this collage is taken from the cover of the LIFE magazine from a 1962 issue. Within the cover a story by Rene Carpenter is presented. Mrs Carpenter pushed limits within her time by going against what she is told whilst being part of the Project Mercury alongside her husband. This small detail is only noticed within the piece if you look closer to find where the cutout is from. The sculpture itself was created by a man and of a man and that is what is noticed first.

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