What does female empowerment look like?

This essay is concerned with one of my series, The Put Downs. The images in the work are setups directed and performed by me, and recorded by my friend and photographer, Raju. In the series I perform setups with exaggeration and blunt humour. I illustrate put-downs which have been said to me about my body, as well as referencing representations of women in the media, and problematic norms and expectations in western society. What follows is the context behind the images and films.