Rosa, Poor Rosa.

Snippet from a chapter
"The hypocrisy here came at great costs to women alone, outside of jail time: the death of one's dignity, respectability, societal place and freedom in participating in the sartorial pleasures of art and fashion that men experienced. Throughout history we note over and over again that males and male presenting person's did not pay this price. And often a heartbreaking price paid was the passions or creative interest of a woman or her potential; 
The press in 1896 clamored around Rosa Blumenfeld as she was arrested at the request of her own father in a case of indecent exposure for merely posing nude for artists. It was her first time modeling. From the New York Journal to the Morning Herald of Kentucky Press described her looks, her fashions she wore in court, to describing her tears, her address was even listed. But nothing was said of the artists that had booked her and used her. They were not criticized nor described. She was only 19 or 20(research results were inconsistent.) One reporter wrote Rosa was “a rather pretty girl with a graceful figure” but nothing about her father or the artists involved. Reported claimed the art made of her that she posed for “TOO inappropriate to describe” thus causing more sense of shame around such an trivial thing we look at today as posing for artists. With tears in her eyes reporters quoted her telling the court “Had I known that I was doing such a horrible thing when i posed...I should have never had done so”
When the press demanded to know if she would model again, it’s recorded that she hung her head and hesitated. When she raised her head she said “That is a question I can not answer. I have already received many letters from artists in this city, New York, and nearby towns, to pose. But all of these letters I have destroyed so you see it is very likely that I may never do so again.” This must have been devastating. Your first time posing, feeling confident, contributing to art before the turn of the century, full of hope and excitement. Only to be arrested at the demand of your own father, harassed by the press, and then destroy the letters that could have meant a successful career of bookings. I imagine her there at night, burning the letters to keep from her father and his misogynistic rage, tears in her eyes. A muse pulled from the sky once she learned she had wings.
And if this had been a predatory situation, male artists praying upon unsuspecting and inexperienced young women wanting to be models, then this was just another case of the age old victim shaming. Holding her accountable for the sins of men who put themselves in positions of authority. With no safety nor solace within her own family, while her father punished her for the sake of preserving his name.
Another factor is to take into account of antisemitism. One article was even as bold to describe her clothes as “costly” in a negative tone in the same breath as saying she was of Hebrew heritage. 
Upon finding these articles I was filled with such a boiling sense of injustice and relatability i had nearly thrown my laptop across the room. Once again we were denied the potential of art and the potential of this young woman as a form of artist herself, even as a model, because of the ideals of “Morality” around womens bodies. We gaze at art in museums all day long, but what of the anonymous women who posed for them and what did they experience in exchange? 

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