Ruffled Around the Edges

One of things Ashley and I decided to do while she was here was a tour of the Met. But we'd both been to the museum many times and wanted to see it through a new perspective, so this time we joined a MuseumHack Badass Bitches Tour for a refreshingly feminist experience of the male-dominated museum. The idea is to celebrate the largely overlooked female voice within the collection. I was horrified to learn that less than 6% of the artists in the Met collection are female (yet more than 75% of the nudes are of women). We also learned about ancient fertility goddesses whose rear ends put Kim K. to shame, a French lesbian painter who defied the norms time and again and was awarded multiple national medals, the inspiring myths of a heroic African princess, and more. Our guide was fiery, swore a lot, and every time she told us an annoyingly misogynstic fact, she would slide on her sunglasses to "throw shade at the patriarchy." At the end of the tour, we were each given the chance to add our own "art" to the Met collection and increase that pathetic 6% statistic. There were plenty of highlights on this tour and it was the perfect mix of educational facts, feminist theory, sarcastic jokes, and inclusive activities that kept us interested throughout. I would highly recommend this tour to anyone trying to see a new side of one of the best museums in the world!

**As a disclaimer, though, if you have not been to the Met before, this is probably not the tour for you as it highlights less famous and mostly unknown artworks. If you want to see the Impressionists or the classic Greek sculptures, plan another trip. That is not to say don't do this tour, rather that it probably should not be your first visit to the Met.

**And as a second disclaimer, men are more than welcomed on this tour. Remember, if you believe that women deserve equal rights and opportunities to men, then you, my friend, are a feminist.