"At theatres, festivals, art galleries and bookshops, women's work is being pushed to the margins....
We no longer live in an age where female thinkers, writers, philosophers, academics, artists, theorists, activists or politicians are rare. [And yet...] The discrimination is obvious. All you have to do is count. It's all the more galling given that women equal or outnumber men as attendees of arts festivals, concerts, readings, discussions and debates, and as arts and humanities students at university. Women write, read, edit and publicise more fiction than men. Women make up the majority of executive, PR and organisational staff in arts and cultural institutions. Women's ticket revenue, licence fees, book purchases and entrance fees are being used to fund events at which women artists and thinkers are marginalised with breathtaking obviousness....
So what's the solution? The establishment, patriarchy, the mainstream, whatever you want to call it, just doesn't find women interesting. It makes sure that women are heavily outnumbered from the very beginning by offering us only a fraction of available opportunities, slots, placements, commissions, trips, panel places, star jobs, reviews. Later, it conveniently uses this to claim that there are not enough women "out there" to make a stronger impression higher up. It talks down women's work. It is supported by a false mythology about the weakness, inconsistency, subjectivity and inconsequentiality of women's creation, experience and perspective."
If you want to count, and if you want to read her solution, here's Bidisha, writing for the Guardian: "tired of being the token women." (ht
2 comments:
I am not sure if it's a sector thing or a difference in Australia, but I am currently finding it difficult to find male referees as I apply for jobs. Not because men don't like me (AFAIK), but because the people who have been employing me recently have been women, my two doctoral supervisors/advisers are women (one is Head of School and the other is Pro Vice Chancellor, Humanities) and the teams I've been working in have been headed by women. Once the three new senior management people at our university come on line (all women) we will actually have a senior management team that is gender balanced. This is a big change from the arguments we were having at the University Council meetings a couple of years ago about the need for Council committees to have gender representation. This is defined as at least one woman and one man on any committee of 5 or less and at least two women and two men on any that is 6-10.
Judy, I just love the kind of political move to have more balanced, gender-inclusive representation on your University Council committees! That's very smart, fair in an exciting and productive way. I with public schools (and private K-12s for that matter) would adopt and enforce a similar sort of practice for the hiring of administrators and of teachers at every grade level. The top admin spots tend to be filled with males more; the teacher jobs are taken by women, probably because they pay so little.
Post a Comment