uals, cross-dressers, tattooed dominatrixes, drag
kings, and other subjects. Aguilar started in the
late 1990s to produce startling nude self-portraits,
and Opie included herself in herPortraits series.
Artists from Sligh and Weems, to Opie and Aguilar
have returned at the end of the twentieth century to
practice a feminist photography rooted in personal
experience—much like Dater, Noggle, and the
women of the first generation of feminist work in
photography—thereby signaling once again that the
personal is indeed the political. Moreover, through
their work, the women in this third generation not
only broadened the scope of the feminist debate,
they also intensified and improved it, pointing to
the limitations of traditional Western feminist ortho-
doxy in its refusal to confront questions of race and
gender. Further, they truly opened up feminism,
proving it to be a completely heterogeneous dis-
course at the end of the twentieth century.
STACEYMCCARROLLSeealso:Conceptual Photography; Deconstruction;
History of Photography: 1980s; Postmodernism;
Representation and Gender; Semiotics; Sherman,
Cindy; Simpson, Lorna; Spence, Jo; Structuralism;
Weems, Carrie MaeFurther Reading
Frueh, Joanna, Cassandra L. Langer, and Arlene Raven,
eds.New Feminist Criticism: Art, Identity, Action. New
York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Jobling, Paul.Bodies of Experience: Gender and Identity in
Women’s Photography Since 1970. London: Scarlet
Press, 1997.
Mann, Margery and Anne Noggle.Women of Photography:
An Historical Survey. San Francisco: San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, 1975.
Mitchell, Margaretta K. Recollections: Ten Women of
Photography. New York: Viking, 1979.
Neumaier, Diane, ed.Reframings: New American Feminist
Photographies. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1995.
Rosenblum, Naomi.A History of Women Photographers.
New York: Abbeville Press, 1994.
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. Photography at the Dock:
Essays on Photographic History, Institutions and Prac-
tices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
Williams, Val.Women Photographers: The Other Observers
1900 to the Present. London: Virago, 1986.Lorna Simpson, Wigs (Portfolio), 1994, Waterless lithograph on felt, 72162 ½" (182.9
412.8 cm), Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, gift of Rhona Hoffman
Gallery and the artist.
[Photograph#Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Courtesy: Sean Kelly Gallery, New
York]
FEMINIST PHOTOGRAPHY