Museum for Camille Claudel

If you don't know her work seek it out.
 http://www.museecamilleclaudel.fr/ opens on 26th March.
Take a breath  and look.

Shifting the Blame exhibited at hatched in Oxford

The piece comments on religions’ attitudes to women.

Religion is frequently used to hold women back, using the demands of some deity as an excuse for much of men’s disempowerment of women, rather than admitting it is just a masculine desire for control.

 A religious doctrine threatening some unknown punishment for disobedience saves having to argue any case for suppression of, and failure to share equal freedoms with, women.

The piece shows Adam and Eve. Adam is kneeling, appearing penitent, his expression portraying ‘Not me, God’.

Eve is leaning on his shoulders, fed-up. Her expression: ‘Here we go again’.

The serpent develops from Adam’s plaited hair and winds under his groin.

The message the piece sends is that most of the sins blamed upon women by religions come from the minds of men, the results of how they wish to behave, the ‘faults’ are truly the sins of men’s behaviour, and yet they prefer to accuse women’s wiles as the cause, and hence punish women for men’s’ misdeeds!