Behind the image: “Women in Emergency”

Project Summary

The images in ‘31 explore social and political parallels between the present and the late 1920s and 1930s.

The project’s limited-edition archival pigment prints measure 28 x 42 cm (11 x 16.5 inches).

Caption to “Women in Emergency”

"Women in Emergency" was the slogan of a Weimar-era movement protesting the longstanding German law known as Section 218, which criminalised abortion. Because this law has rarely been enforced in recent times, the nation’s anti-choice ideologues are now invoking the related Section 219a, which makes “promoting” abortion a crime—preventing providers from disclosing details of their services, listing doctors in an online database for harassment, and forcing women to see approved “councillors” before having an abortion.

The situation in Poland is far worse. In 2021, its high court’s Decision 175 outlawed the abortion of fetuses with serious medical problems, pushing the country closer to a total abortion ban. Anyone helping or encouraging a woman to get an abortion is also subject to criminal penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent repeal of Roe v. Wade, its 50-year-old decision guaranteeing national abortion rights, has led to many states criminalising abortion once again, raising the question: Can America be far behind?

The Title

The title “Women in Emergency” refers to the eponymous 1929 play by German obstetrician and gynaecologist Carl Credé. German women were fighting against the country’s abortion laws for over half a century by the time the artist Käthe Kollwitz created her famous 1923 poster titled “Down with Abortion Laws!”. At the time the conflict between pro-choice and anti-abortion groups was not that much different than today’s arguments. Conservatives argued that legalising abortion was morally unacceptable, went against the church’s teachings, and would increase prostitution and sexual misbehaviour. Pro-choice groups argued that women should have full control over their own lives and bodies. In 1931 the debate came to boiling point. Credé ’s drama about mass unemployment and economic crisis was one of the art pieces that encouraged mass mobilisation against criminalising abortion.

Section 218 of the German Penal Code outlawed abortion and declared it a criminal act for both doctors and women involved. The law, which had been in force since 1871, was changed in 1927 and allowed abortion on medical grounds. The 1903 version of Section 218 also lightened the sentence in other cases to jail time rather than five years of hard labor. Despite the continuing penalties the number of abortions rose due to economic desperation.

The 1930 version of Section 218 resonates with the Polish high court's 2021 decision. The court unanimously ruled that abortion of a seriously ill fetus was unconstitutional. The record of this decision bears the number 175. The verdict has pushed the country further toward a total abortion ban. Today in Poland, abortion is allowed only if a woman's life or health at risk or a child was conceived as a result of rape. 

On 24th June 2022 the US Supreme Court ruled that abortion access was no longer a constitutional right. This ruling gives individual states the right to decide whether to criminalise abortion, and if so, under which circumstances. The ruling is regarded by many as a huge step backward for the women’s rights movement because it restricts women’s self-determination and freedom of choice.

Colours

Just as in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel We, the colours of “Women in Emergency”—gray, yellow, gold, red, and white—are associated with both positive and negative values. To connect the image to Orwell's 1984, a more well-known novel inspired by We, one of the characters wears a red belt as a reference to Julia, one of the novel's main characters. Even though Julia is a member of the Junior Anti-Sex League and wears the group’s red membership sash, she is secretly rebellious beneath the veneer of Party loyalty. Therefore her red sash can be interpreted as both a sign of her vitality and a reference to sexual sins. 
The viewer also finds an almost blackish red in the number 175, directly connecting the color to the State and the order it demands. 

Further examples of the fluidity of colours are yellow and gold. Yellow and gold appear in the number 218 and on the uniforms, and are associated with death. Simultaneously and contrarily, slight yellow sunshine fills the foreground, reminding us of the life force associated with the sun.

As with Zamyatin's novel, the image celebrates color's relativity and the freedom to pick and choose colours for their aesthetic and emotional appeal, rather than by a preconceived plan or scientific theory.

Characters

Although the image will remind some viewers of Orwell's 1984, the numbers on the uniforms, the scenery and the color palette connect the two female characters directly to Zamyatin's vision in We. 

To encourage a discussion about femininity and the role of women, I styled the two models in different ways. One of the women wears a red sash, which again links her to Julia, the lead female character in 1984. After learning how to hide her desires, she attempts to reclaim her womanhood through sexuality and expressions of femininity, despite the Party’s efforts to suppress sexual instincts in women. The other woman is expressing herself through high heels, the wearing of which has been associated with femininity since the 19th century and is considered a seductive act in Zamyatin’s novel.

Numbers

Numbers play an important role in the image “Women in Emergency.”

The numbers on the walls refer to the German anti-abortion law of the 1930s (Section 218) and the Polish law passed in 2021 (Position 175). They appear on both the walls and the uniforms. This representation is intended to suggest that women have been stripped of self-determination. They are only what the laws allow them to be: objectified beings predestined to be reproductive machines.