Abstract
Feminist visual theory holds that the devaluation of women’s art is reproduced not only by institutions but by how people look. We report a preregistered, mixed-methods study in Pune, India, connecting women artists’ lived experience with viewers’ perceptual responses. In an online experiment, 49 viewers (30 women, 18 men, 1 non-binary person) rated 12 artworks (7 by women, 5 by men) without knowing the artist’s gender, on liking, objectification, empowerment, immersion, and emotion. Neither artist gender nor viewer gender significantly predicted objectification, empowerment, or liking, although descriptive trends favoured works by women. Art experience was the most consistent predictor of engagement. Viewers who reported immersed rather than detached enjoyment perceived depicted subjects as more empowered (p < .001), consistent with feminist critiques of disinterested spectatorship. Exploratory analyses showed that closer alignment between artists’ stated intentions and viewers’ interpretations predicted transcendence-related responses, resonating with the rasa concept of the attuned viewer (sahṛdaya). Thematic analysis of interviews with 37 women artists showed that becoming, remaining, and being recognised as an artist depends on unequally distributed access, the continual negotiation of gendered expectations, and audiences and markets that confer legitimacy unevenly. Implications for feminist psychology, empirical aesthetics, and arts practice are discussed.