Washington, D.C
Wonder women in Washington DC
Dressed in a cotton and silk tutu with linen slippers, Belgian dancer Marie van Goethem stands proud, face upturned, and feet in classic ballerina pose. She’s been immortalised for eternity as Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, a wax sculpture by Edgar Degas. Today revered for being one of his greatest works, Little Dancer wasn’t warmly received by critics and French bourgeois society who called it “ugly”, “repulsive” and oddly, a “threat to society”. All because Marie didn’t fit the society ideal—she was, after all, an “opera rat”, a term given to working-class young dancers with the Paris Opera ballet.
Today, a recast of Marie is one of the highlights at Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art.
View Full Image
It speaks volumes that even today women are still often lambasted for not fitting a perfect society ideal. As Marie shows us, it is absolutely alright to stand out from the crowd because history will remember you.
It is my maiden visit to Washington DC, the capital of a country that could soon be electing its first woman President. There, I find many other powerful women, like Marie, whose stories fascinate and delight.
At The National Museum of Women in the Arts, I am reacquainted with that legendary feminist painter, Frida Kahlo. It’s a self-portrait painted for her lover, Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky, during their brief affair. She’s dressed in a pink embroidered skirt, gold jewellery and honey-hued shawl, black hair woven with flowers.
View Full Image
The revolutionary artist and feminist may be the most famous woman in the museum but hers isn’t the only inspiring work. The museum is the first of its kind dedicated only to women (or those identifying as women) artists, with paintings and sculptures that are big, bold and powerful.
Take Lalla Essaydi’s Bullets Revisited #3, a staged photo where a henna-d model sleeps on bullet casings. “This photograph is to showcase the role of women in revolutions, which often gets ignored. It’s also a way of talking about how the white gaze has impacted perceptions of Arab women,” says our guide, Micah Koppl.
There’s a floor dedicated to heavier work, sculptures in iron and wood because “work by women are thought to be delicate and small”.
The beauty of this museum is that it is all inclusive—there are non-binary artists’ work on display, it features transgender artists during exhibitions, there’s a nursing lounge for mothers, and all-gender bathrooms.
Interestingly, its grandeur is owed to the fact that it sits in what was once a Masonic temple. Elsewhere, on a visit to a functioning Masonic temple, Scottish Rite House of the Temple, what stands out in this all-male bastion is the fact that my guide is a woman. She has no connection to the freemasons and yet, conducts a tour that is informative, knowledgeable and extremely witty.
While on the subject of women breaking the mould, there’s aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, which deservedly pays tribute to this record-setting aviator and pilot. I learn that Earhart was also a trendsetter when on the ground. She designed and wore her own clothes. The line, Amelia Fashions, released in 1933, was revolutionary for its time, being practical, fuss-free and meant for “active women”.
America’s many women icons can be found in museums and institutions across Washington DC.
A tour of the US Capitol takes me to the rotunda with its paintings and heavily decorated ceiling, and the National Statuary Hall. There, the newest statue is of civil rights leader and journalist Daisy Lee Bates. In the rotunda, a white marble sculpture honours three prominent Suffrage pioneers, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Tour guide Ann mentions that Rosa Parks (also in the hall) was the first woman to lie in honour in the Capitol when she passed in 2005; her statue was the first full-length statue of an African American.
View Full Image
Helen Keller is here too, captured as a seven-year-old showing her expression the first time she touched water. The disability rights advocate’s ashes are interred at the Washington National Cathedral.
The Neo-Gothic structure is the second largest church building in the country but perhaps best known for possessing a gargoyle of Darth Vader.
The Episcopal cathedral looks like a traditional religious structure, but offers much for those with a keen eye. In the section titled the “Human Rights Porch”, are small sculptural heads of Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt. This year is important to the cathedral—it marks the 50th anniversary of the first ordination of women as priests in the Episcopal Church, and they hired their first woman stonemason.
As religious structures go, it certainly is unique.
Museums and their food
One of my favourite finds in the city is the Mitsitam Native Foods Café in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, which showcases native foods. Mitsitam offers a taste of native foods, some in new avatars. There is frybread, manoomin (wild cakes) with smoked salmon, bison burgers and hotdogs, wild rice salad and corn pudding. This kitchen is pathbreaking also because it is led by chef Alexandra Strong and sous chef Toshiba Veney—the first all-female team at a Smithsonian museum café.
Right outside the museum I find presidential candidate Kamala Harris staring at me. Given that it is election time, she and Donald Trump are everywhere.
The stretch of road in front of many Smithsonian museums is parked with vans dishing out hotdogs, pretzels and souvenirs. Harris’ face adorns many of the vans, and you can also find it on tees, caps and magnets. Her famous “I’m Speaking” phrase (from the 2020 vice-presidential debate with Mike Pence) is a particular favourite. It may seem like just a cheap souvenir but it is a sign of the time, or possibly of history in the making.
At the Made in Washington store promoting black artists, it is easy to see whom they support—Harris shows up on candles, magnets, coasters, and tea towels.
Like many of the other iconic women in Washington DC, Harris seems set to become a part of the country’s history.
Joanna Lobo is a Goa-based journalist.