Selling Sexism
Sexism has a long history of supporting constructed gender roles, building stereotypes, fostering violence, and creating damaging ideals. The Museum of Sexist Objects (MoSO) on the Ferris State University campus has a growing collection of over 2,500 everyday historical and contemporary objects that exhibit Sexism, gendered violence, and stereotypes. These objects impact everyone's thought patterns and normalize Sexism into institutional and social structures. Their collection provides a framework that raises awareness about Sexism and encourages scholarly dialogue and research. We have carefully selected over 100 objects and categorized them into four groups - Body Image, Gender Roles, the Objectified Body, and Misogyny. While the MoSO has an expanded list of categories, this exhibition focuses on several broader categories, allowing viewers to begin decoding and deconstructing sexist messaging that permeates institutional and social relationships. The sexist views reflected in the commercial products of the MoSO collection are sometimes forthright and other times more subtle, but they are all produced to reinforce those views as usual, accepted, and, worst of all, authentic. Through the consumerist lens, people are literally buying into the belief system of Sexism and reinforcing it with every purchase of these goods. Alongside these objects from the MoSO collection, four contemporary artists examine and question the outcomes of sexist attitudes and actions within their practices. Whether the focus is power, faith, race, or queerness, each artist grapples with the complexities and nuances of sexist tropes to challenge the politics of gender.