Ovarian Empress is a filter that empowers the feminine while breaking down the ‘pejoration’ of femxle connotation, inspired by the wonderful writings of journalist and activist David Shariatmadari
’Sexist assumptions find their way into speech and writing for the simple reason that society is still sexist. Language, as the medium through which we conduct almost all relationships, public and private, bears the precise imprint of our cultural attitudes. The history of language, then, is like a fossil record of how those attitudes have evolved, or how stubbornly they have stayed the same.
When it comes to women, the message is a depressing one. The denigration of half of the population has embedded itself in the language in ways you may not even be aware of. Often this takes the form of “pejoration”: when the meaning of the word “gets worse” over time. Linguists have long observed that words referring to women undergo this process more often than those referring to men.’
• David Shariatmadari, 2017
Sad Periods is an animated guerilla face filter that combats unhealthy beauty standards that are being promoted on Instagram. Mainstream popular beauty filters strive to dehumanize womxn’s appearances, transforming womxn into seemingly ‘perfect’ objects that resemble flawless fashion mannequins. Sad Periods is a parodical statement that we can be gloriously grumpy and ‘ugly’. Womxn will not obey capitalist beauty standards that are imposed upon them by sexist structures and thought processes.
CREDITS
Sine Özbilge ©