Prague, Nov 7 (CTK) – A photographic exhibition of women´s portraits, some of them nude, presented in the Library of the Czech Academy of Sciences prematurely ended due to a protest from gender associations that labelled the exhibition sexist, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes Saturday.
The Czech Gender Expert Chamber and the Women´s Congress criticised the presentation of the pictures in the academy´s library within the Science and Technology Week that will last until November 15.
They said the exhibition had nothing to do with science or research. The exhibition degraded women in general to mere sexual objects and challenged the expert contribution of female scientists, the associations declared.
They said the exhibition gave the message that women were good only to make the world more beautiful and that they had no other role in science.
The associations said the photographs should be presented elsewhere and on a different occasion. The exhibition in fact shows that sexism is acceptable in Czech society, even in science, they added.
The author of the pictures, Karel Richtr, dismissed the criticism.
He said the photographs were made using the wet collodion process that had been used in the late 19th century.
Richtr said the main point of the exhibition was to present this photographic technique, about which he delivered a lecture within the Science and Technology Week.
Martin Lhotak, head of the Library of the Czech Academy of Sciences, did not want to comment on the cancellation of the photo exhibition.
kva/t
