Started by several disgruntled women artists in 1985, the Guerrilla Girls are anonymous, appearing in public wearing gorilla masks and using the names of dead female artists ("Käthe Kollwitz" and "Frida Kahlo" have been in it since the beginning). They hide their faces and their names, they've explained, to keep attention focused on the issues they raise and not on who they are.
So group members are already familiar with breaking stereotypes. One day, they claim on their Web site, they were sitting around their secret clubhouse when they started making a list of stereotypes of women. They came up with enough to fill a book. Gold Digger, Trophy Wife, Feminazi, Biker Chick -- the good, the bad, and the worse are examined and mostly dismissed in Bitches. But before it gets too serious, the authors present several pages of "our own ethnic doll collection," which includes Sallie Mae, White Trailer Trash, and Madame X, Dragon Lady. All of them push labels to their ridiculous limits -- the Guerrilla Girls strike again.
