In art and in life, women have long been held to impossible standards of perfection. Walk through the halls of any museum and you’re sure to encounter classically rendered depictions of ladies — or, more aptly, muses — draped languidly over sofas, covering their body parts modestly yet suggestively, looking longingly into the distance, or, well, dead. And even in death, most appear unruffled, the ideal balance of innocence and seductiveness. It comes as no great surprise that artists, mostly male, chose to immortalize women this way. The scrupulous standards fictitious women are made to maintain in art mimic those thrust upon them in real life. Be modest, but not uptight; sexy, but not sexual; beautiful, but not vain. The list goes on.

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