There is no singular medium or style that unites feminist artists, as they often combined aspects of several movements, including conceptual art, body art and. Although many of the people who create feminist art are women, it's quite possible that men also create feminist art. The authors point out that art history has been a conservative and slowly changing (or “monolithic”) discipline, especially compared to fields such as literary studies, and that in 1987 there were very few feminist art historians holding professorships. In 1973, Chicago, together with graphic designer Sheila Levrant de Bretteville and art historian Arlene Raven, created the Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW), a two-year program for women in the arts that covered feminist practice in the studio, as well as theory and criticism. Feminist art created opportunities and spaces that didn't exist before for women and minority artists, and paved the way for the identity and activist art genres of the 1980s.
The Womanhouse installation encompassed an entire Hollywood residential house organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro as the culmination of the Feminist Art Program (FAP) of the California Institute of the Arts in 1972. Video art emerged in the art world a few years before feminist art and provided a medium, unlike painting or sculpture, that had no historical precedent established by male artists. While the women's movement of the 1970s encouraged both female artists and feminist art historians and critics to “change the art world so that it functions in a more socially responsible and non-elitist way,” while demanding equal opportunities and recognition for women in the arts, this progress was not without controversy. Feminist art and performing art frequently crossed paths during the 1970s and beyond, as performance was a direct way for female artists to communicate a physical and visceral message. Feminist art has served as an innovative driving force to expand the definition of art by incorporating new media and a new perspective.
The Dinner Party is one of the best-known feminist works of art in existence and is permanently housed in the Brooklyn Museum's Center for Feminist Art. Men are as much a part of this movement for equality as women, so I think they have the full capacity to create art that is considered feminist art regardless of their gender. This image, which addresses the role of religious and historical iconography of art in the subordination of women, became one of the most iconic images of the feminist art movement. Feminist art supports this statement because art began to challenge previously conceived notions about women's roles.
