Was FRIDA KAHLO really a feminist?
This is a tricky question. I would agree that she did not see herself as a feminist in the way active feminists would officially declare themselves in the decades after her death. But, some of her acts can be seen as acts of feminism: Simply valuing the worth of her life to the point that most of her paintings were autobiographical is seen by some people (academics and regular people) as a feminist act. Continuing to paint and take her own work seriously when very few dealers or museums took the work of female artists seriously is also seen as a feminist act by some. And then there are certain things she did in her life that people regard as feminist — dressing as a man, cutting off her hair, even that she had sexual relationships with women. Although I do think that she felt that women are undervalued and sometimes treated as inferior, I still think it’s not quite correct to call her a feminist. She INSPIRED a lot of feminist 30 or so years after her death when her work became widely
