International Cartoon Festival on Women's Day 2003, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Traditionally, women in cartoons have suffered from the same gender bias as in other medium. They have been objectified and depicted as greedy, seductive, or as plain frivolous creatures. Even the conventional body outlines in the cartoon reflect the sexist view of the woman’s body. Women in power on the subcontinent are no exception to this bias. Male cartoonists, after all, are the product of the same male oriented societies.

The aim is to initiate a debate around this practice and also compile cartoons by the feminist cartoonists. Feminist cartoonists from the West and from the rest adopt different approaches to subvert the dominant styles of cartoon. In Bangladesh, initiative of its kind is for the first time taking place from March 8 to 13, 2003 to observe International Women's Day at Drik Gallery. Cartoon exhibited in the festival from Bangladesh and South Asian, would we hope will lampoon the traditional male dominated societies. Discussions on feminist cartoon drawing will accompany the exhibition.

We invite activists, artists, cartoonists, feminists and persons, women's groups and collectives who are engaged in such work to join us in this festival.

Covering Subjects :

Globalization and global power
- experiences of colonialism and imperialism, brain-drain, global
labour market, global consumer market; consumerism; global middle-class, myth of global culture, western hegemony, media war against South, development policies and agencies, targeting Third World, World Bank, IMF, trafficking, etc.

Family and households
- normalizing nuclear family, single woman, domestic work, kitchen
and beyond, invisibilizing housewives, space allocation, property rights, marriage, guardianship [laws and norms], 'new' servants as domestic workers, etc.

Beauty industry
- representations, beautification, objectification, fashion,
pornography, beauty contests, feminization, masculinization, etc.

Sexuality
- rape, rape laws, normalizing monogamy, dominance of heterosexuality, 'good' girls and 'bad' girls, psychology and psychiatry professionals, medical knowledge-production of body, reproduction, contraceptives, viagra, etc.

Spaces
- working space, bureaucracy, construction of the 'Public', employment, maternity leave, eve teasing, relationship, body building, media control, men as 'culture', etc.

Violence
- rape, military industry, [male] aggression in ethnic and communal
forms, domestic violence, victim blaming, etc.

Movement
- sisterhood, working class organizations, everyday resistance,
middle-class activism, etc.