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ABSTRACT
Gender inequity has affected museums for as long as these institutions have existed. Increased representation of women in the workplace over the past 50 years has not brought about significant changes. In the museum sector, despite the fact that white women now dominate many areas of the museum like education departments, women of color are not equally represented, and there are continued gaps in compensation and access to power for women and gender minorities across race and ability. Without direct intervention, museums will continue to replicate societal patterns of oppression such as sexism, racism, and ableism. It will take an intentional and comprehensive strategy to transform museum practices towards greater gender equity. It is time for a new intersectional feminist agenda that focuses on increased representation for women of color and gender minorities, and closes the gendered leadership gap. It is time to move women and gender minorities in the field from presence to power. As the frequent catalysts for critical reflection and institutional change, educators are well-positioned to lead this movement.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
About the authors
Elisabeth Callihan is the Head of Multi-Generational Learning at the Minneapolis Institute of Art where she oversees projects and programs for learners of all ages. She also supports the museum’s work outside its walls, exploring how art can be a vehicle for collaboration with and social cohesion within the city’s communities. She is co-founder of Museum as Site for Social Action (MASS Action), a national initiative dedicated to equity and social justice in museums. She served previously as Manager of Adult Programs at the Brooklyn Museum, and Manager of Public Programs and PR at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. She holds an MA in Fine and Decorative Art from Sotheby’s London.
Kaywin Feldman has been the Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) since 2008. Feldman oversees the museum’s staff of 250, its fine-art collection of over 89,000 objects, its 473,000-square-foot facility, and an annual operating budget of $32.9 million. During Feldman’s tenure, Mia has strengthened its national presence with ambitious special exhibitions; championed the use of digital technologies to support and enhance audience engagement; and strategically acquired major works of art for its permanent collection. Feldman serves on the boards of National Arts Strategies (NAS), the Chipstone Foundation, and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and is a member of the Bizot Group. She is a past president of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), and a past chair of AAM. Feldman received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Memphis College of Art in 2008, and holds an MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London, and an MA from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of London. Her specialties are Dutch and Flemish art and Greek and Roman archaeology.
Notes
1 Mugo, “Five Mujeres Critique.”
2 Stanfil, “Taking on the Boys’ Club”.
3 Dimitraka and Perry, Politics in a Glass Case, 8.
4 Baldwin et al., “A Call for Gender Equity.”
5 See “The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, or The Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum.”
6 Greenberg et al., “Change-making Through Pedagogy,” 139.
7 For the context of this article, the authors refer to the movements of feminism within the United States.
8 The term cisgender refers to a person whose identity and gender corresponds with their sex assigned at birth. Another term referenced in this article is cisheteropatriarchy, which is the system of power based on the supremacy of cisgender, heterosexual men.
9 Hooks, Ain’t I a Woman, 12.
10 First coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in relation to anti-discrimination law as a way of understanding feminism through the lens of race. Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” 139–67.
11 Moore, “Museums and Race.”
12 Of the directors of the top 33 museums internationally, only five are women. Stanfil, “Taking on the Boys’ Club.”
13 Schonfeld, Westermann, and Sweeney, “Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey.”
14 Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing,” 167.
15 Cain Miller, “As Women Take Over.”
16 Liner, “A Dollar Short.”
17 Kletcha notes that the word “gender” here suggests more than just biological differences, but as a primary way of signifying relationships of power and a way to decode meaning and to understand the complex connections among various forms of human interaction. Dana Carlisle Kletchka, “Women’s Work.”
18 As outlined in the “Pink Collar” section, museum education departments tend to have higher numbers of women employees than many other museum departments. Consequently, the pay scale for educators is often lower than that of other museum staff, like those who work in curatorial areas.
19 Halperin, “Here’s How Much Money.”
20 In this gendered construction, curatorial practice is an intellectual pursuit, and thus suitable for a man; while education is akin to caregiving, and thus more suitable for a woman to do. Kletchka, “Women’s Work.”
21 Feldman, “Power, Influence and Responsibility.”
22 Murphy, “Picture a Leader.”
23 Wakefield, “Transformative and Feminist Leadership.”
24 “Section II: Practice,” 167–87.
25 “Women. Fast Forward.”
26 Coleman and Rippin, “Putting Feminist Theory to Work,” 586.
27 Rice and Austria, “Collaborative Leadership and Social Advocacy,” 165 and Minoudaki, “Collaboration and Collectivity.”
28 Taylor, “Inclusive Leadership,” 43, 52.
29 Mizrah, “Women’s Ways of Organizing,” 39–55.
30 An analysis of gender pay gaps can be found at GlassDoor.com.
31 Ironically, though this is one of the Guerilla Girls’ primary tactics, even one of their members, Alma Thomas, in a talk at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, noted that: “ … the strategy of counting is insufficient. We need a new language to describe disparities.” Mel Harper Creative, Twitter post.
32 Bivens et al., “Collections,” 134.
33 Adam et al., “Getting Started,” 12.
34 Meade and Shaw, “Editorial,” 413–21.