Facing Sexual Harassment and Abuse in the Feminizing Museum

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing number of women in museums, the undervaluing of educational work traditionally associated with women, and labor largely done by women today, persists. This begs the question: in what other ways are women and femmes working in museums undermined despite their growing presence as workers and the emerging centrality of the educational role of museums? In society more broadly, we see how undervaluing women and their labor leads to a spectrum of treatment that can be considered violent. In this spectrum, we include pay and benefit disparities, disempowerment, and marginalization through sexist, homophobic, and transphobic comments and objectification, harassment, threats, verbal, physical, emotional, and financial abuse, and at the far end of the spectrum sexual assault and murder. In this article, we discuss data collected through a survey conducted about incidences of sexual abuse and harassment experienced by museum workers. We explore the results of the survey in relation to the gender-based division of labor and skills among the museum workforce. We look to the responses to this survey as a gauge of how much power women and gender non-conforming people have in their daily work lives in museums and propose actions that could increase empowerment and support.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual violence
• feminization
• labor
• gender equity
• museum education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

About the authors

nikhil trivedi is an application developer at a museum in Chicago and a social justice activist. His activism work focuses on ending rape culture and patriarchy through his role as a volunteer educator for Rape Victim Advocates. He is also a regular contributor at The Incluseum, co-creator of visitorsofcolor.tumblr.com, and his writing has been featured in Model View Culture and Fwd:Museums. You will also find him playing his guitar and sitar, composing noise, hiking, making herbal medicines, and drinking warm glasses of chai on cold winter nights.

Aletheia Wittman cofounded and coordinates The Incluseum (incluseum.com). She works at the Burke Museum in Seattle, WA. Over the last eight years, she has been organizing programs and exhibits as well as advising projects that explore and build the capacity of museums to engage with social justice issues. Her writing has also been featured in the Journal of Museums and Social Issues, AAM’s Museum Magazine, and Fwd:Museums. She also devotes time to favorite activities like hiking, exploring new and familiar cities, watching movies, and cooking.

Notes

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2 Tambe, “Has Trump's Presidency Triggered the Movement Against Sexual Harassment?”

3 Schonfeld, Westermann, and Sweeney, Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey Report, 10.

4 Boast and Mott, “Labor of Love: Revaluing Museum Work.”

5 American Alliance of Museums, “2014 AAM Salary Survey.”

6 Hong, “Soft Skills and Hard Numbers,” 7.

7 Sydell, “The Forgotten Female Programmers Who Created Modern Tech.”

8 Geek Feminism Wiki, “Timeline of Incidents.”

9 Gay, Bad Feminist, 129.

10 Bureau of Labor Statistics, “2017 Labor Force Statistics from Current Population Survey.”

11 Schonfeld, Westermann, and Sweeney, Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey Report, 3.

12 RAINN, “Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics.”

13 National Emerging Museum Professionals Network Blog, “Emerging Museum Professionals Preliminary Survey Results.”

14 Willness, Steel, and Lee, “A Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents and Consequences of Workplace Sexual Harassment.”

15 American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting & Museum Expo Website, “About.”

16 Autry “‘Status’ @artstuffmatters.”

17 US Prison Culture, “Transformative Justice.”