Mikala is spot on here. Museums (and likely many other nonprofits) have become very dependent on the spousal income subsidy, and this has a sorting effect on who is able to sustain a career working in museums.
I had an admittedly anecdotal but interesting conversation last year with a young (25?) visitor who came to a "behind the scenes" event. She stayed a long time and her questions were mainly about how to go about getting the education/training and experience to do my job. My job is somewhat uncommon, so many ask me these kinds of questions, but in her case it was different because she went on to say that she herself was interested in pursuing such a career.
The "kicker" was when she disclosed that several years ago she received a substantial amount of money in a settlement of some kind, which she used to buy some real estate. Since recent trends in the market have been very favorable to her, she said that she felt like she could "afford to choose a career like this and just follow my passion." That suggested to me that even though she had never worked in a museum, her understanding was that doing so could only be a financially safe choice for those who don't really have to worry about their paycheck. I didn't ask, but I had to wonder if she assumed that all of us working there must be in similar economic positions.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion!
Cheers,
Michael
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Michael Holland
Principal/Owner
Michael Holland Productions
Redmond, WA USA
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-18-2019 12:26 PM
From: Mikala Woodward
Subject: Is the Museum Profession Turning Pink? A New White Paper from GEMM
Why so many white women? The explanation that comes to mind for me is that they're more likely to have a partner who's got a job with a decent salary and benefits (which museum jobs don't seem to, for the most part). I could never have afforded to pursue this career if I hadn't been married to a man who could actually support our family; now that I'm not married to him anymore, I'm struggling to pay the bills. With a steady stream of young white women (many with supporting partners/parents) coming out of grad school eager for a museum job, there's not a lot of pressure on institutions to pay people enough to live on. And until we figure out how to do that, I don't think we're going to solve this problem.
Mikala
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Mikala Woodward
Exhibit Developer
Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience
Seattle WA
Original Message:
Sent: 03-15-2019 09:32 AM
From: Steven Miller
Subject: Is the Museum Profession Turning Pink? A New White Paper from GEMM
Thank you Anne. Having taught graduate museum studies for sixteen years with the Seton Hall University MA Program in Museum Professions and before that with Columbia University, the New School for Social Research and New York University I can say from experience the vast majority of my students were female. They were also overwhelmingly white. Throughout those years I wondered why there were not more men, or, non-white students. Of course, unless there is an obvious reason for how people make decisions, it is difficult to know why people decline to do something. GEMM is absolutely doing the right thing and it will prove effective for women in our field.
Cheers,
Steve
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Steven Miller
Doylestown, PA
Executive Director Retired
Boscobel Restoration, Inc.
Original Message:
Sent: 03-14-2019 11:35 AM
From: Anne Ackerson
Subject: Is the Museum Profession Turning Pink? A New White Paper from GEMM
Colleagues,
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that women comprised almost 50-percent of the museum workforce in 2018. But when we look at the overwhelming number of women in the graduate school pipeline and in museums' junior ranks, GEMM anticipates the field could reach 70-percent female in a decade, thus becoming an official pink-collar profession. While the term 'pink collar' has little to do with education or training (after all, pink collar professions run the gamut from nursing and teaching to wait-staffing and housekeeping), it has everything to do with long-standing cultural definitions of what constitutes appropriate work for women and men. Across the board, female-dominated professions carry with them the economic and social burdens of "women's work." Consequently, society views them as "less-than."
The "respect gap," as author Joanne Lipman calls it, is just one of many consequences to being a pink-collar profession. Widening gender gaps in pay and access to promotion are also associated with female-dominated fields. As the white paper points out, female-dominated fields are not exempt from issues with diversity and inclusiveness, parental leave, and sexual harassment.
Now is the time for the field to collectively understand and address these implications. The white paper offers a variety of actions museum leadership and museum workers can take to ensure more equitable workplaces as one way to attract and retain a creative and diverse workforce.
GEMM believes this timely issue is worthy of your attention and urges you to share the white paper with your staff, board, and membership.
Sincerely,
Anne
Co-founder, Gender Equity in Museums Movement (GEMM)
--
Anne W. Ackerson
Creative Leadership & Management Solutions
1914 Burdett Avenue
Troy, New York 12180
T: 518-271-2455
E:
anne@awackerson.com
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