In the 1980s artists influenced by feminism began to challenge the category “woman,” arguing that it was too homogenous and instead positing that identity is equally inflected by race, sexuality, class, and other, more individual forms of difference. No longer satisfied with a biologically based explanation of the difference between the sexes, 1980s feminism asked: How do we come to find ourselves as gendered people in the world? What are the ramifications of that gendering for our ideas and desires?

The Guerrilla Girls’ “The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist” is featured in “Gender Trouble” section of the exhibition This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, which provides an overview of the artistic production of a decade of cultural and political transformation. Presenting canonical as well as nearly forgotten works produced between 1979 and 1992, the exhibition touches on major developments of the period, including the rise of the commercial art market, the politicization of the AIDS crisis, the increased visibility of women and gay artists and artists of color, and the ascension of televised media.