Prior to beginning work on this assignment on Women Creating Culture, review Did Women Have a Renaissance? (Links to an external site.) and From 1971: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? (Links to an external site.) Also watch The Story of Women and Art: Episode 3.

For this assignment, you will examine women’s contributions to the creation of culture in western society through a discussion of three key figures (artists, poets, writers, dancers, performers, composers, etc.) from our required or recommended resources. In your paper, you will also analyze how western society has shaped these women’s lives and their creativity.

Women Creating Culture

Next, as you examine how society has shaped these women’s lives and creativity, consider some of the following questions.

• How did prescribed gender roles for women impact their creativity?
• What images defined women (seductress, mother, virgin, etc.)?
• Which images and roles were acceptable and which were outside the norm?
• How did these narrowly-defined gender roles and images (such as the “nature of women”) shape the lives and work of your three key figures?

Some women may have outwardly conformed to these expectations while their work challenged the roles/images in subversive and creative ways while others openly rebelled. As you delve deeper into these issues, consider the dynamics of gender and power in creative expression. For example, how does the subject matter in paintings and texts (or performance) reflect the dynamics of gender and power? Who has privilege? Who has power? How do these creative women sometimes deconstruct (break down) dominant male patterns while reconstructing female experience?

As you discuss how society has impacted, Women Creating Culture women’s creativity, remember to consider the significance of race, class, and/or ethnicity of the three key figures. How does the artist’s class, for example, impact both the importance of her contributions and the ways society shaped her life and work? Does her ethnicity or race determine what subjects she writes about or paints or how she performs? Again, provide detailed examples from the creative women’s work (compositions, performances, sculpture, paintings, writings, etc.) to support your discussion (three to four pages).

In Summary, be sure that your Women Creating Culture Paper:

• Identifies Three Key Figures from Different Time Periods and Genres, and Discusses Their Artistic Contributions to Culture
• Discusses How the Identified Key Figures’ Made Important Creative Contributions to Culture in Their Own Area, and Provides Detailed Illustrations from Their Work
• Analyzes How Western Society Has Shaped the Lives and Creativity of the Identified Key Creative Women
• Analyzes the Impact of Race, Class, and/or Ethnicity of the Three Identified Key Creative Women’s Lives and Work

The Women Creating Culture paper

• Must be six to eight double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) resource.
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted

For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.).

• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.
• Must use at least two scholarly sources (from the Ashford University Library, or the Week 1 required articles by L. Nochlin and/or J. Kelly-Gadol) in addition to five of the required or recommended resources from Week 5 and previous weeks for a total of seven sources.
  • The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
  • To assist you in completing the research required for this assignment, view this Ashford University Library Quick ‘n’ Dirty (Links to an external site.) tutorial, which introduces the Ashford University Library and the research process, and provides some library search tips.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide.
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.