keep persisting illustration series
2026-07-22 23:18 Note Type: curation Tags: sexual-assault, illustration, visual-art
I hit the search button for a bunch of research papers on autoethnography, sexual-assault, love, rape, and heartbreak. This somehow popped up in a research paper by Sophie Beaumont titled
Death By A Thousand Cuts: Gender Microaggressions and Gendered Violence in Aotearoa New Zealand
It reminded me of an amazing series of artwork on domestic-violence by sujata-setia, and amazing south-asian artist, based in the UK now.
Inside the PhD thesis by Sophie, was this amazing illustration by Courtney M Privett titled, "Nevertheless, she persisted".
The Keep Persisting series is a viral protest and illustration project created by author and artist Courtney M. Privett.
It first debuted on February 8, 2017, after she felt moved to draw a cartoon reacting to the historic silencing of Senator Elizabeth Warren on the Senate floor (which famously prompted the phrase, "Nevertheless, she persisted"
The defining foundational piece of the series depicts a woman facing a monolithic wall of speech bubbles containing the everyday sexism, dismissals, and microaggressions women face from childhood onward.
Phrases like "Smile," "Calm down," and "Bitchy" crowd the canvas. Within 24 hours of posting it on Facebook, the illustration went globally viral, shared by hundreds of thousands of people across social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
More information can be found here in the references.
References:
https://www.kqed.org/arts/12928953/san-jose-artist-persists-with-viral-protest-meme-shepersisted