Original artwork description:

I read a book shortly before painting this painting, ‘Genius, The Natural History of creativity by Hans Eysenck’ and on page 127 I read this line; “Genius is only found in males (for whatever reason!). Illustrations abound. In the list of geniuses studied by Cox, (1926) there are no women.”

Let’s take note of the somewhat surprise from Eysenck as if he alludes to the reason actually being gender. So I’ll take a moment to elaborate the times. Women only won women’s rights in the 60’s and I doubt it was an easy road after that, sexism is still evident deep within culture so I don’t see women in the 60’s suddenly being accepted into jobs automatically without prejudice. The book itself points out that the definition of genius requires eminence in the field of your career. Women weren’t allowed careers so there you go, mystery solved. Even though another 60 years has passed we need to take into account that’s just your grandmother, or mothers generation who fought for equal rights and I bet there were some too busy raising young children to take it seriously. So you have your generation to be the first without prejudice in obtaining a job and on your way to the definition of genius. I personally argue it’s not a fresh start as in male dominated careers women report others having the opinion they won the job just please the stats and don’t receive the same respect amongst colleagues.

As I read on it seemed as if the women who were eminent such as Marie Curie or Emily Dickinson must have just been considered very good. So the prejudice doesn’t just lie in not being able to find avenues to become eminent, but then being recognised as eminent.

Following that thought I decided to whip out a female Einstein. She wears his jacket and the buttons lie the way a woman’s jacket does. That subtitle on page 127 named “Gender”, seems to have a misprint as I read “Prejudice in gender”.

This artwork is one of my hand-stretched ones, sold with hooks ready to hang and a certificate of authenticity.

Materials used:

Water soluble oils

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