Too few women in the arts?
Margaret Hodge MP has said that there are few too women in key roles in UK arts organisations. You can see Jude Kelly's response here.
I find this puzzling because I perceive the arts and humanities, definitely at education level, to be generally gendered as 'female' subjects. The experiences that Kelly shares show how general cultural attitudes towards women as limiting to their ability to climb the career ladder and demonstrates how little things have really changed. You'll find this in most things associated with skills considered 'women's work', i.e. women darn socks, men are celebrated fashion designers; women make packed lunches, yet there are tragically few top female chefs.
I am sure there are counter arguments...please feel free to air them here :)
more evidence
here's another article echoing the arguments above, only in the world of PR
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It's definitely the case that there are loads of (white, middle class) women coming out of arts education, and no where near enough entry-level jobs in the arts for them. Yet apparently all the top jobs in the arts are still male dominated...
As far as new media artists go, over 35% of artists who have submitted to folly's projects in the last year have been female, which I tend to think of as being a really positive figure (since art that deals with technology always seems to be a particularly male dominated genre). I wonder what the figures are for non-media artists though.
Jennie
folly Programme Coordinator