Women and the Discourses of the Visual: Where Are Women in This Picture?

The place of women in the existing and emergent discourses of the visual and spatial is explored. When gender and the visual-spatial emerge together, the visual and spatial are almost always associated with the masculine perspective. The social construction of women is tied to visual-spatial representations in diverse domains. Within the discourses and analyses of education, there are several important associations between gender and the visual-spatial, such as the attribution of low spatial ability to females, the panopticon organization of classrooms, the portrayal of girls and women in educational materials, and the influence of engineering on these materials. Three categories of content that emerge are: (1) the visual representation of women, (2) the visual-spatial abilities of women, and (3) the rights of women to use space. Schools are gendered spaces, and the imprint of Western, white, heterosexual, and male-oriented perspectives is encoded in the spatial organization of schools, in assumptions about women, and in instructional materials. Such organization and assumptions must be acknowledged if real equality in education is to be achieved. (Contains 21 references.) (SLD)