25 Illustrations About Femininity, Body Image, And Other Issues Women Face Every Day

It seems that people are becoming increasingly aware of the beauty standards that were once imposed on every woman. Nonetheless, some women still face unrealistic expectations from toxic partners, friends, or even family members. This is one of the themes Molnar challenges in her work. The illustrator highlights the absurdity of the criteria women are expected to fulfill in order to be considered worthy. She also addresses various misconceptions about femininity, revealing how misunderstood women still are.

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Housework

In order to get more valuable insights about this unique series, we reached out to Lainey Molnar and asked her some more questions regarding her recent work. We wanted to know what the artist considers the most rewarding aspects of being an illustrator. Lainey shared with us: “I’m very grateful for being able to be creative as a profession, as someone who doodled her way through school, this is such a dream. I never believed anyone who said ‘You need a diploma and a secure job, you can be creative in your free time’ and I think my delusion that I can be and do whatever I want and be successful at it definitely contributed to me doing this right now. But the best part is always reading and hearing the reactions to my illustrations, all the personal stories, and the conversations they start. As soon as the comics leave my hands, their purpose is to ignite these conversations and provoke thoughts.”

Single mother

Woman having good time with cats

Asked how her art style evolved over time, Molnar said: “I had phases during my life, sometimes I exclusively used markers or pencils, but for the most part digital art with the signature black outlines was my personal style. What I see is that my skills improve significantly the more hours I put in, if I look back at my work 2-3 years ago, I see something super unrefined, the change is so big. I really recommend the practice to everyone regardless of talent, because improvement in drawing can be pretty visible and it’s so satisfying to see!”

Man and woman hate

Having kids

We were also wondering if Lainey could describe the most challenging part of creating an illustration. She told us: “I think the most challenging part is the overthinking. I have a huge list of illustration ideas and from picking one to finishing the illustration it’s a pretty straight line, but before that, my brain just goes all over the place trying to think about how people would react, whether it is controversial, is there any relevance, did I post too much of a topic recently, etc. I’m doing my best to use my intuition more, but of course, this is my job, I have to be conscious about it!”

Bigger mean and body