Sisterhood Is Powerful: International Posters

Like posters from the UK, the international posters in the GWL collection are concerned with promotion, participation and protest.

This poster, produced by The American Association of University Women for National Women's History Month in March 1987, calls attention to the gender pay gap.

With recent media attention around the current gender pay gap and mandatory reporting, this poster is as relevant today as it was in 1987.

This poster was created by the Chicago Women's Graphics Collective in 1976. The Collective was organised in 1970 to create posters for the growing women's liberation movement.

The founders of the Graphics Collective wanted their new feminist art to be a collective process in order to set it apart from the male-dominated Western art culture. Each poster was created by a committee of 2 to 4 women led by the artist/designer.

Another group of international poster-producing feminist activists are The Guerrilla Girls. Over 55 people have been members over the years, some for weeks, some for decades. 

The Guerrilla Girls wear gorilla masks in public and use facts, humor and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias as well as corruption in politics, art, film, and pop culture. They have stated that their anonymity keeps the focus on the issues, and away from who they might be.

This poster from 1989 is based on the painting Odalisque and Slave by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

This version shows a woman in a gorilla mask reclining, accompanied by the facts: ‘Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female’.

This poster was originally designed to be a billboard commissioned by the Public Art Fund in New York, but when it was rejected the Guerrilla Girls rented advertising space on New York City buses and ran it themselves.

The bus company eventually cancelled the advertisement, stating - according to the Guerrilla Girls - that the image 'was too suggestive and that the figure appeared to have more than a fan in her hand.’

As well as bringing gender and racial inequality into focus within the arts community, the Guerrilla Girls' work raises concerns and observations on numerous topics.

The Guerrilla Girls 'believe in an intersectional feminism that fights discrimination' and many of their posters comment on the lack of diversity in mainstream museums and art galleries.

The Guerrilla Girls continue to produce work today, often reproducing versions of these classic posters with updated statistics.

This poster is from the Spanish International Day of Gay Pride in 1981.

The poster declared that there can be no freedom for lesbians without freedom for women.