International Women’s Day 2021 is nearly upon us! If you are struggling for present ideas to celebrate this important day with the women artists in your life, fear not! I know just what they really really want. Read on to discover what would make all women artists very happy:

• Equal museum representation

Things have moved on a bit since the Guerrilla Girls’ first weenie count in 1989, which found that less 5% of the works on display in the public collection of the Met Museum were by female artists and that 85% of the nudes were women, but there is still a lot of work to be done. The ratios may have changed a bit since, but collections are still mostly male (and white). In the US, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) found that in 2018 the collections of 18 major US museums were 87% male and 85% white.  

Male artists also get a lot more exhibitions than women artists at major museums around the world. A 2015 article by Art News found ratios of around 20:80 in 5 major US museums and a few major French, German and British ones between the solo shows by women vs men (with the best ratios being close to 40:60 at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris, and the Whitechapel gallery in London). 

And this is unlikely to change anytime soon. In the past decade, only 11% of art acquired by major US museums was by women artists (NMWA).

• A more even field in the art market

Of course collections are unlikely to change much until leadership in the art market is more evenly distributed. 30% of directors of large museums in the US are female (it rises to nearly 48% if smaller ones are included).  3 of the most visited museum in the world (The Met museum, the Louvre and the British Museum) have never had a female director (all stats from the NMWA).

In the US, in 2018, only 27% of curators were women (down from 32% in 2015), according to the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD)

However, it is encouraging to note that the percentage of women art collectors is rising. The Robb Report stated that 36% of art collectors in the US were women in 2018, up from 16% the previous year. Maybe if the clientele is changing, this will force institutions and galleries to change to cater to this new market?

• An Education system that has real career prospects for women artists

In Australia, 71% of art graduates are women according to the Countess report but less than 34% of artists in major galleries and museums are women; in the UK, 64% of undergraduate and 65% of postgraduates in the arts are women, but 68% of the artists in major galleries are men (NMWA); and as noted above this extends beyond the artists, most senior roles in the art market are dominated by men. 

The artist Carolee Schneeman summed it up well when she said “my teachers have always said you’re very talented but don’t set your heart on art. You’re only a girl.”

• To close the pay gap

The NMWA found that women artists earn 74 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts (and this doesn’t just affect artists, female museum directors in the US earn 75 cents for every dollar earned by male directors).

The highest selling artwork by a living female artist at an auction was “Propped” by Jenny Saville which sold for £8.25m ($12.4m) in 2018 (the highest selling artwork by a living male artist is “Rabbit” by Jeff Koons which sold for $91.1m in 2019) but even that record was overshadowed at the time by Banksy’s stunt of the self destructing artwork, which was sold at the same auction.

I have focused here on a few data driven considerations. But a lot could also be said about the more qualitative aspects of sexism in the Arts, from the objectification of women in Art to the Art world’s handling of sexual abuse and harassement claims (see the Guerrilla girls’ posts about the Male Graze, or their suggested handling of sexual predators) and about recognition of women artists. The NMWA has a campaign to challenge their viewers to name 5 women artists. Off the top of your head, without looking at books or Google, could you?