Why are Women Always Naked?
Walking into any art museum, you will find a common theme… mostly naked women done by fully clothed men. Despite the progress in gender equality, women in the art world have been and continue to be shown in a sexualized light, mostly naked. At the same time, men are depicted as clothed, masculine, and powerful. This imbalance isn’t just in the imagery; it’s in the numbers, too. Women earn 70% of MFAs, yet they make up less than half of working artists and are paid less. For every dollar a man makes, women make 80 cents. In Artforum, one of the top art magazines in North America, 70% or more of the advertisements featured mostly male artists. This is why representation matters, and we need visibility and opportunities. This imbalance reflects the ongoing gender biases in the art world that need to be addressed not only in museums and galleries but also in the way art is created, displayed, studied, and consumed.
In a lot of older Western art, female nudity is seen as expected and normal. It was considered artistic and not inappropriate. For example, Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538). Includes a naked woman lying on a bed looking right at the viewers. She is meant to be pleasing to the eye. In Monet’s Olympia (1863), the woman stares back at the viewer with a confident look. However, the painting still renders the woman’s body the focus. Don’t even get me started on Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque (1814). The woman’s body is manipulated, distorted, and twisted to make it more “elegant.” It’s not even realistic. Even in 1814, there were unrealistic beauty standards. Men made these paintings for men. They created the idea that showing women naked in art is normal and should be expected as long as it’s beautiful. Women were very rarely shown as people with lives, and they were mostly shown as objects to be gawked at.
Today, we still see gender bias play out right in front of us in advertising, pop culture, and Instagram. There is a commercial that recently came out to advertise Gravite, a cologne for men. In the commercial, there are three women who are blindfolded and provocatively dressed. Then, a man comes in wearing the cologne and walks by; the women then draw their attention to the irresistible allure of the smell of the cologne by parting their lips and smiling. The audience gets to witness the magnetic power of the cologne. These platforms still use women’s bodies to sell, promote, grab attention, and get likes. On Instagram, for example, it is common for people to see women posed in ways that are meant to match beauty standards or to showcase their bodies. In these images, made by men and mainly for men, sex sells. These images are a reflection of how deep misogyny runs and how women are still stuck between acknowledging their image and, at the same time, how they are being controlled by how they are being viewed. Even when women are behind the camera, they are still working within a patriarchal system.
While female nudity is common, male nudity isn’t as common and is often seen as taboo, shocking even. Men are shown as powerful and godlike. Think about Michelangelo’s David. He is naked, but his masculinity reflects bravery and perfection. Male nudity is about strength, action, and status, not beauty and vulnerability. This is clearly a double standard in which women’s bodies are only meant to be passive and beautiful. So, even though both can be nude, they are shown in very different lights.
Some may argue, “But nudity is natural in art,” and yes, that is true. The human body has been a subject in art, but that doesn’t answer the question of why depictions of the female body are so much more common than those of the male. Why is male nudity so taboo or even shocking? That imbalance shows how our culture still views gender. Others say, “Men are objectified too,” which is also true. However, male nudity is not viewed the same way. Nude men are viewed as powerful, superheroes, or strong. At the same time, women are viewed as passive and soft and as objects to be seen rather than heard. The impact is different for women, and they are still pressured to be sexual and to present themselves in a sexualized way. So, while nudity itself isn’t the problem, it is the way it is used, who benefits from it, and how it is shaped by gender and power.
Fortunately, many artists have pushed back against the biases and the challenges women face every day and how they are represented in the art world. Groups like The Guerrilla Girls use humor and bold images to draw attention to these types of biases. They call out the lack of female artists and the overrepresentation of nude females by male artists. In 1989, the Guerrilla Girls came out with Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum? The Guerrilla Girls were making fun of the famous Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque (1814). They switched a Guerrillas head in place of the woman’s head. Other artists like Kara Walker confront race, gender, and power in haunting silhouettes that force the viewers to reconsider the historical narratives that men have told. In Endless Conundrum, an African American Anonymous Adventuress (2001), she uses silhouettes and cyclorama to represent women’s black bodies by questioning modern artists like Matisse and Brancusi.
Alongside these artists, there has been a growing number of museums and galleries that call to action and provide more inclusive exhibitions, like the National Museum of Women in the Arts located in Washington, D.C. They create a space and let women who have been ignored and pushed aside be heard. Feminist art collections are also gaining momentum. They use collaboration and community to rewrite what art looks like and who gets to make it. These efforts are reshaping the art world into a place that is more honest, diverse, and less dominated by patriarchal thinking.
From classical paintings to Instagram posts, the way we represent bodies, especially women’s bodies, has always reflected deep cultural values. That’s why rethinking representation matters not only in art but in the world around us. When we start questioning who is being looked at, who is doing the looking, and why, we begin to challenge the systems that shape how we see ourselves and each other. Representation is about power, visibility, and voice. Changing how women’s bodies are shown in art is one small but powerful step towards changing how they are viewed in real life.