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Rationale
2020 Rationale
Curated by Carina Capone Luxury Item 2020 was a Print, Ceramic, Sculpture and Painting show exploring personal experiences with prejudice surrounding women's health. Featuring Bea Buckland-Willis, Bronte Nicole-Scott, Carina Capone, Claire Welch, Laura Hayley and Laura Condren.
The show evolved from personal conversations and expressions of frustration between friends. We told our stories to one another and when turning to the women around us, were frustrated to keep encountering more and more.
Women’s health has for a long time been treated as a social problem where women need to toughen up, keep a stiff upper lip, not offend, accept their lot and not get hysterical; rather than the public health epidemic that it is. Rather than being tackled with science and medicine, our issues have been confronted with bias, platitudes, prejudice and personal ‘opinions’ from health care professionals that have no grounding in fact.
It is traumatic; it leaves women untreated, mistreated, misdiagnosed, exhausted, isolated and in pain.
Curated by Carina Capone Luxury Item 2020 was a Print, Ceramic, Sculpture and Painting show exploring personal experiences with prejudice surrounding women's health. Featuring Bea Buckland-Willis, Bronte Nicole-Scott, Carina Capone, Claire Welch, Laura Hayley and Laura Condren.
The show evolved from personal conversations and expressions of frustration between friends. We told our stories to one another and when turning to the women around us, were frustrated to keep encountering more and more.
Women’s health has for a long time been treated as a social problem where women need to toughen up, keep a stiff upper lip, not offend, accept their lot and not get hysterical; rather than the public health epidemic that it is. Rather than being tackled with science and medicine, our issues have been confronted with bias, platitudes, prejudice and personal ‘opinions’ from health care professionals that have no grounding in fact.
It is traumatic; it leaves women untreated, mistreated, misdiagnosed, exhausted, isolated and in pain.
…
Back in 2001 a report from the University of Maryland revealed that health care practitioners were making decisions regarding women’s care in direct contradiction with contemporary medical science. This results in women receiving less aggressive treatment plans than men and more often being prescribed sedatives when men were prescribed pain killers.
Right now, the Department of Health’s National Women’s Health Strategy for 2020-2030 identifies numerous areas where they believe health care professionals should be provided with further education and awareness, including: breastfeeding, menopause, older women’s health, cardiovascular disease, and endometriosis. Australia is aware that our health care works are not fully equipped to help women. There isn’t enough being done.
Globally women still make up only 31% of clinical trial participants, and even when women are present in trials, results are not reported on the basis of sex; so there is so little data on where women’s experiences and side effects diverge from men’s.
The Australian Gender Equity in Health Research Group describe the key problem as:
“The historical assumption that female biological processes are, paradoxically, thought to interfere with research to a sufficient degree to justify the exclusion of women, and yet men and women are thought to be homogeneous enough that research results from male studies can be generalised to women.”
The treatments aren’t designed for us, the doctors don’t believe us, the science skirts around us, the law does not protect us.
We must defend each other.
These issues are entirely intersectional, they compound disadvantages faced by LGBTIQ+ women, by Indigenous women, by women of colour and women from low socioeconomic backgrounds. AND the unequitable health treatment effects everyone who isn’t a normative white male, that means transgender men and women, indigenous men and men of colour. None of them are fairly represented in the science, in the treatment, in the diagnostic tools.
The same survey that found women only made up 31% of trial participants, found no transgender or intersex people were reported in those same trials.
We need to tell these stories, for our own healing and to incite change. Stop telling women their anger doesn’t belong, stop telling women they need to be less emotional in order to have a seat at the table. Stop telling women they don’t have it so bad and should be grateful. I can be grateful and angry. I can be lucky and deserve better. And I can be as incensed as I want for the people in my life that are unlucky, and really, really deserve better.
Emotion does not invalidate facts.
We are allowed to feel.
Right now, the Department of Health’s National Women’s Health Strategy for 2020-2030 identifies numerous areas where they believe health care professionals should be provided with further education and awareness, including: breastfeeding, menopause, older women’s health, cardiovascular disease, and endometriosis. Australia is aware that our health care works are not fully equipped to help women. There isn’t enough being done.
Globally women still make up only 31% of clinical trial participants, and even when women are present in trials, results are not reported on the basis of sex; so there is so little data on where women’s experiences and side effects diverge from men’s.
The Australian Gender Equity in Health Research Group describe the key problem as:
“The historical assumption that female biological processes are, paradoxically, thought to interfere with research to a sufficient degree to justify the exclusion of women, and yet men and women are thought to be homogeneous enough that research results from male studies can be generalised to women.”
The treatments aren’t designed for us, the doctors don’t believe us, the science skirts around us, the law does not protect us.
We must defend each other.
These issues are entirely intersectional, they compound disadvantages faced by LGBTIQ+ women, by Indigenous women, by women of colour and women from low socioeconomic backgrounds. AND the unequitable health treatment effects everyone who isn’t a normative white male, that means transgender men and women, indigenous men and men of colour. None of them are fairly represented in the science, in the treatment, in the diagnostic tools.
The same survey that found women only made up 31% of trial participants, found no transgender or intersex people were reported in those same trials.
We need to tell these stories, for our own healing and to incite change. Stop telling women their anger doesn’t belong, stop telling women they need to be less emotional in order to have a seat at the table. Stop telling women they don’t have it so bad and should be grateful. I can be grateful and angry. I can be lucky and deserve better. And I can be as incensed as I want for the people in my life that are unlucky, and really, really deserve better.
Emotion does not invalidate facts.
We are allowed to feel.
…
The show wasn’t solely about the worst of it, we also brought laughter and light. We remembered the friends that helped us, the joy we shared and made light of the difficult stuff. We want to take some of that power back and share that with you.
The women in this show have been unimaginably strong in putting themselves out there, they are to be congratulated. Their stories cross policing of their bodies, disrespect of their bodies, assault, trauma inflicted by medical practitioners, trauma mismanaged by medical practitioners, experiences of shock and isolation from puberty, social stigma, familial pressure, and other moments of exhaustion, shame, fear and pain experienced due to gender.
The individual artist statements found in their profile discuss what they have each brought to their art.
We would also like to thank the women in our lives who shared their stories with us personally. You support us, validate us, make us feel less alone and we hope we can do the same for you.
The women in this show have been unimaginably strong in putting themselves out there, they are to be congratulated. Their stories cross policing of their bodies, disrespect of their bodies, assault, trauma inflicted by medical practitioners, trauma mismanaged by medical practitioners, experiences of shock and isolation from puberty, social stigma, familial pressure, and other moments of exhaustion, shame, fear and pain experienced due to gender.
The individual artist statements found in their profile discuss what they have each brought to their art.
We would also like to thank the women in our lives who shared their stories with us personally. You support us, validate us, make us feel less alone and we hope we can do the same for you.
…
Please direct all general enquires to Carina Capone artist and curator of the 2020 show at luxuryitemshow@gmail.com
Interest in commissions or print editions can be directed to the individual artists, you can find their website and/or social media on their page.
Interest in commissions or print editions can be directed to the individual artists, you can find their website and/or social media on their page.
The artworks
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