In Conversations with Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro I actually found myself feeling a pang of jealousy, as I read the way Judy structured her classes learning environment. The fact that her students got to learn through experiencing and actively doing what they were being taught is how I wish all of my classes were formatted this way. I am a huge believer in active learning and actually do my best learning outside of the classroom when simply going through things. I appreciate the things taught in the classroom but a lot of it gets lost if I am not able to actively apply it in a way that connects me to the concept personally. Judy's students got to do this and got to interact with a wealth of different individuals. I think this goes to show how brilliant women are capable of being when giving the chance and freedom to exercise that, as Judy was giving at Fresno.
One point however that I would like to agree with is Judy's sense of entitlement to the project. This point seemed to ring true in "The Sexual Politics of the Dinner Party." In reading more about Chicago i sense that she is more concerned with the objective of being exhibited that she kind of looses the sensitivity. Chicago seemed to be so focused on her goals and aspiration that she could have possibly lost sight along the way. However, I do not agree with the article when it tries to play down the hard work that was done by this select group of women. The fact that such derogatory words and phrases were used to described the art work is disheartening.
However, like any movement, there was some conflict internally of course. The section that discussed Hammond, who came out as a lesbian under the feminist movement, shows what happened when other groups began to try and become associated under the same movement. Hammond's artwork seemed to have a disconnect from the objective of the overall feminist movement. This disconnect seemed to cause confusion as her art work lacked the same impact and meaning as the feminist art. I feel like many feminist saw this disconnect but didn't know how to handle it early on, in an effort to not offend the woman they had encouraged just a short time before. This is all a prime example fo how when the message is not cohesive and everyone isn't completely together it can create confusion and slow down the progress and could very well give critics that much more of a reason to attack the movement as whole when two different concepts that aren't te same and blended together unsuccessfully.