Department of Sociology Faculty Adviser: Prof. Anthony Chen, Ph.D.
Networking for Gender Justice:
Women’s Arts Organizations as Facilitators of Gender Equity in the Arts Industry
by Jade Davis
Introduction The later 20th century brought many drastic changes in the United States in terms of occupational sex segregation. In the 1970s, segregation began to decline substantially across the board as more women found their way into traditionally male-dominated careers, which continued into the 1980s and 1990s.1 The art industry was no exception, as women artists began to be nearly as visible and successful as their male counterparts in art-rich cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Artists such as Joan Mitchell, Judy Chicago, and Louise Bourgeois hit their strides and became some of the most well-known and well-paid artists of their time. At the same time, The Guerrilla Girls — masked artists who adopted names of deceased women artists — became some of the most outspoken critics of the treatment of female bodies in the largest museums, creating billboards with phrases such as “Do
women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?”2 Between this group of women and other efforts throughout the U.S., women had a voice in the art world, both becoming part of the mainstream and creating their own alternative spaces where they could be as politically and socially vocal as they wished. However, this progression has slowed since the late 1990s, and the gender disparity persists in the arts today, something that contemporary sociologists, other researchers, and the media continue to examine. Like in many other professions that have traditionally been male-dominated, the number of women artists has increased slightly, but their pay, ease of success, and other individualized experiences are still gendered and inequitable. Recent article headlines such as “A New Study Shows That Most Artists Make Very Little Money, With Women Faring the Worst”3
1 Roos, P. A. & Stevens, L. M. (2018). Integrating Occupations: Changing Occupational Sex Segregation in the United States from 2000 to 2014. Demographic Research, 38, 127-154. dx.doi.org.turing.library.northwestern.edu/10.4054/DemRes.2018.38.5 2 Naked Through the Ages. (n.d.). https://www.guerrillagirls.com/naked-through-the-ages 3 Kinsella, E. (2017, November 29). A New Study Shows that Most Artists Make Very Little Money, with Women Faring the Worst.
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