Reclining Odalisque is like a male gaze mouse trap.

Men are lured in by the 5 foot tall, 12 foot long sexy lady with the come hither eyes and then are forced to read Essaydi’s life story and the conditions under which Islamic women survive, written in calligraphy on the woman’s face. Take that, patriarchy!

In her photography series, “Les Femmes du Maroc,” Essaydi’s goal was to piss off two groups of men - the European ones who turned the East into some exotic harem orgy and the Islamic ones who objectified women, put them in harems and barred them from learning calligraphy, among other things. Obviously the Arabic writing is for the men who can actually read it, so that doesn’t affect European men as much. What really nabs at them is the fact that the women are reclining seemingly for their benefit, only to find out that they are staring them down in silent, clothed defiance. Making women recline is like a strange form of restraining women from literally and figuratively standing up for themselves, so using a reclining figure in protest is pretty much genius on Essaydi’s part. She takes back the power of women to simply lie down without being prey to the fetishized eyes of Eastern and Western men alike. We are all about art getting as subversive as possible, especially for the benefit of girl power so Reclining Odalisque is one of our faves.

Overall, this is a spectacular example of sticking it to the man and other than the fact that we worry about how long the henna will remain on these women’s faces, we love every square inch of radical feminist subversion and think that all artists should follow Essaydi’s example.