The He-Man Woman Haters Arts Club

When I wrote The Open Letter to Arts Administrators, people emailed me asking how I could so accurately represent the struggle they have in the arts  . . .

And most of the people who emailed me were women.

I think about most of my clients, many of whom have plenty of skills, but are really struggling to get their voice heard and respected in the organizations they work for.

And most of them are women.

I think about the structure I see in many arts organizations, where they have a male Artistic Director . . . and most of the support staff (i.e. Development Director, Marketing Director, etc.) are women.

And then I wonder if many of the issues we see in the field of arts administration, low pay, long hours, too much hiearchy, lack of talent management, etc. occur (in some part) because we have so many women in the field that we assume . . . in an incredibly unfair fashion . . . that their love of the art should circumvent their common sense.

And then I wonder if we would be dealing with the same problems if the arts administration field was primarily male?

I wonder if we see arts administration (and nonprofit administration in general) as "women's work" and if that perception causes more trouble then we realize?

Does anyone else wonder that?

 

 

 

Comments

[Brian Golden]

Yes. I personally also think you will see some of the more "traditionally female" disciplines (in quotes because I fully understand the inaccurate generalization) such as costume design underpaid and underappreciated.

[Barbara Koenen]

I think about the female/male ratio in the arts all the time and I think your overall observations are correct. I'm not sure about common sense v love of arts, but I do think that discussion of this topic can bring about recognition, actions and change. So, what do we do about it?

[Adam]

Barbara,

Continuing the discussion, in as public a manner as possible is a start (I think). Sometimes you just have to let people know . . . that YOU KNOW . . . something isn't working here.

I also think there could be a roll for a gender specific organization to formally address these issues. Maybe one of their duties could be identifying the best arts organizations for a women to work for . . . thereby giving those groups a competitive advantage over everybody else.

[jen j.]

I am curious about the pay scale internationally for employees of arts organizations.

Is there a relationship between societal value of the arts and salaries in the arts?

Toronto has a city art plan...affordable places for artists to live and work. It seems they value what the arts offer a community.

[Chris Casquilho]

This discussion came up at a panel we held for the Emerging Upstate Arts Professionals (chapter of Americans for the Arts Creative Conversations). Most of the people in the room were women, and several things came up, including a laundry list of things related to gender - the expectation that female arts admins might be in a household where they are not the primary wage earner, young single women being at the bottom of the white-collar salary food-chain already, etc.

[ThompsonEarnestine34]

Set your life time easier take the personal loans and all you need.