Pissing Women: The Story Behind the Subversive 90s Photo Series

"A young woman, captured in black and white, dressed in corporate attire with slick bobbed hair, is standing on Vauxhall Bridge at night. She's lifting up the front of her skirt and she's urinating against the pillar - not squatting, but standing and pissing like a man, gazing with rapt intent at the arc of urine soaking the pavement at her sober Mary Jane heels."

"heels. This kind of pissing is a profoundly machismo gesture, at odds with the demurely dressed figure. It signals the marking of territory. It's carnal, feral, aggressive, distinctly unfeminine. It's an image from Sophy Rickett's seminal, arresting photo series Pissing Women, currently on display in the exhibition Stream at London's Cob Gallery. Once you've seen it, you'll never forget it."

The photographic series presents a formally dressed young woman urinating while standing on Vauxhall Bridge at night, creating a stark visual tension between conventional femininity and overtly masculine behavior. The act functions as a territorial, carnal, and aggressive gesture that subverts expected dress codes and gender norms. The project began in 1995 when an art school graduate took temporary work at the Financial Times and noticed crossing an invisible threshold into the City's distinct culture. London is portrayed as a layered urban landscape of overlapping territories, invisible borders, and unequal access, with the City as its own ecosystem of rules and hierarchies.

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