In "Anonymous Women: Camouflage and Calamity," on display at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (FMoPA) through June 30, photographer Patty Carroll pointed her lens at the relationship between women and domesticity from the 1950s to today.

What she sees ... well, it’s complicated.

Complicated like a woman trapped in her oven, but still somehow, her arms are reaching up through the range, stirring a pot with one hand and answering a phone with the other? Yes.

Complicated due to shifting cultural norms, evolving expectations and the pressure for the perfectly curated home? Perhaps.

It’s up to the viewer to decide.

Consumed by collecting?

The exhibition shows women literally swallowed up by their collections of things, from cleaning supplies to plates.

The museum also has an installation with rows of hanging kitchenware and toy cleaning tools, showing how Carroll painstakingly stages each picture.

It’s inside the installment, among the hanging plastic plates and baskets, that museum Executive Director Zora Carrier explores what we do to ourselves as women in certain environments because we feel obligated to act a certain way.

“This is all about consuming, consuming, consuming, and the need to possess,” Says Carrier. “If it shiny and colorful, then it’s probably worth a lot.”

Now, to be clear: It’s not everyone, it’s not all the time, and it’s not always bad.

Carroll's work is a take on cultural expectations, and it’s not a judgement -- it’s just a view from the cheap seats.

“It’s not always good, but if we can see it from a distance,” said Carrier, “we can learn a lot and recognize our own weaknesses or of the women who are in our lives.”

The idea is that things should complement our lives, not define them.

And now, an aside ...

Full disclosure: I have a magnet collection.

I like magnets.

And every trip I take I have to get one.

There is no more room on my fridge—the magnetic part is covered, but I can’t stop now.

I don’t identify this as a female action. I identify it as the cheapest way to hoard memories of happy times.

I used to have a cricket box collection, because they reminded me of my mother.

I pared down when I moved, because I had to.

I need to talk to Patty Carroll, but Carrier says it’s up to us to see what we need to see.

I need to talk to an expert in Gender Norms and Society.

Am I some cliché victim of cultural pressures as a woman?

I may be freaking out, man.

I need to think about this more, but one thing is certain:

Carroll has me hooked.

Recommended viewing

Finally, here are the links to the two other shows at FMoPA to take in after you get a laugh (and an anxiety attack) thanks to Carroll.

• On display through July 23, the “International Photography Competition” encompasses work from Belgium, Austria, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. Seven hundred photographs were entered, and only 22 were chosen.
• In "Minor League and Best Friends," on display through June 30, Photographer Andrea Modica offers a collection of black-and-white portraits of famous Yankees baseball players from their minor-league days, as well as portraits of best friends from Philadelphia and Modena, Italy.