Gender Discrimination in Museums - Dismantling the Master's House? - BC Museums Association
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FEATURE ARTICLE
Dismantling the Master’s House?
Gender Discrimination in Museums
Tania Muir women’s experience, failure to ac- of public museums in the late eigh-
knowledge and celebrate women’s teenth and early nineteenth century.
Writer, feminist, and civil rights ac- accomplishments, and the dispro-
tivist Audre Lorde questioned the portionate representation of women In The Origins of Museums, Olive
capacity for change within our cur- artists in our public galleries. How Impey and Arthur MacGregor doc-
rent institutions and power struc- do our museum collections and ex- ument how the practice of collec-
tures when she stated, “the mas- hibitions express our unspoken as- tion and display began with the
ter's tools will never dismantle the sumptions and values as a society? exploits of wealthy gentlemen who
master's house. They may allow us And is it possible to transform our had the means to travel the globe
temporarily to beat him at his own institutions to reflect the true diver- and bring back its wonders. The
game, but they will never enable us sity of our public(s)? display of objects functioned as
to bring about genuine change”. the social construction of the gen-
tleman communicating the power,
Over the last decade, museum con-
How do our museum prestige and privilege of the own-
ferences, publications, and forums collections and er. Curated through the eyes of the
have celebrated the capacity of mu- exhibitions express our bourgeois elite male traveller, the
seums to act as agents of change,
unspoken assumptions subsequent collections portrayed
engaging marginalized communities women as passive, superfluous, or
and providing a fertile platform to
and values as a society? as a muse or object in relation to
address diverse social justice issues. the male subject. As national muse-
However, the idea that museums Anthony Kiendl in the forward to ums emerged in the late eighteenth
should serve a larger ideological pur- the Banff publication Obsession, and early nineteenth century, the
pose is not entirely new. And histor- Compulsion, Collection, Collections: collections and exhibitions contin-
ically, the values and objectives es- On Objects, Display Culture and In- ued to privilege the male experience
poused by museums have, in many terpretation, delves into how our reinforcing narratives of national-
cases, contributed to the creation museum collections not only reveal ism, masculinity and colonization.
and reinforcement of repressive assumptions about societal values, The Philadelphia Museum, which
ideologies in regards to gender, race but also play a significant role in opened in 1786 by established artist
and class, and not to dismantling the governing our understanding of and collector Charles Peale as one of
current power structures. the world. In order to unpack some the first museums in North Ameri-
of the stories our collections tell, it ca, is an excellent example of the pa-
Feminist scholars, museum practi- is important to understand the con- triarchal museum structure of the
tioners, and activists have critically text from which our collections have period. As seen in this monumental
challenged the patriarchal policies emerged beginning from private col- 1822 self-portrait entitled The Artist
and practices of museums not- lections, to the development of cabi- in his Museum, Peale depicts himself
ing the lack of documentation of nets of curiosity, and eventual birth as the master of his museum, pulling
12
FEATURE ARTICLE
Contemporary feminist
artists and activists
draw attention to
our current patterns
of collection and
representation of
women within the
contemporary museum
system.
Above: Charles Willson Peale, The Artist in His Museum, 1822, in the collection of and activists draw attention to our
the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. current patterns of collection and
representation of women within
back a draped crimson curtain to re- into our shared history. This recon- the contemporary museum system.
veal the collection he developed to structive method has in many cases
reinforce his status and world-view. provided an opportunity to appro- It has been over 30-years since the
priately recognize and celebrate New-York based group of women
Rosalie Favell, a contemporary Mé- the accomplishments of women artists the Guerilla Girls banded to-
tis artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, throughout history. And while fem- gether to protest rampant discrim-
directly responds to Charles Peale inist historians look to address the ination within our public art muse-
in her 2005 image The Artist in her past, contemporary feminist artists ums, exposing the small percentage
Museum. Inverting Peale’s image of
the male connoisseur, Favell inserts
herself within the image as an In-
digenous woman, disrupting the
patriarchal narrative and the colo-
nial context of early museum collec-
tions. In contrast to the museum col-
lection developed by Peale, Favell’s
collection tells of her journey to
discover her own personal history
and identity through images from
family photo albums.
Like Favell, feminist historians have
responded to the inequitable repre-
sentation of women through the
task of recovery and inclusion, look-
ing for ways to reinsert women back Above: Rosalie Favell, The Artist in her Museum, 2005
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FEATURE ARTICLE
of women artists being collected and search in 2001 to analyze the status 36% of solo exhibitions committed
exhibited in comparison to their of women artists in Canada and the to female artists in 2013, only 3%
male counterparts. Unfortunately, nature of institutional discrimina- of those were to non-white female
the number of women represented tion, Zemans returned her study in artists. The combined effects of gen-
in collections continues to be well 2013 to identify if there had been der and racial discrimination have a
below that of their male peers. A a substantial change within this particularly negative effect on the
2015 feature in Canadian Art maga- twelve-year period. While there is representation of women. In her
zine, looked at the demographics of still a long way to go, Zemans in her 1982 publication Ain’t I a Woman,
solo exhibitions of living artists at 2013 report was able to identify a feminist and American author bell
Canadian public institutions. The positive trend for women in terms of hooks invited mainstream feminists
results were underwhelming, with arts grants, national awards, acquisi- to acknowledge the intersection be-
64% of solo exhibitions allocated to tion into major museum collections, tween racism and sexism, challeng-
male artists. and the exhibition of female artists ing the category of womanhood as a
in group and solo exhibitions. discrete category of analysis. Femi-
As art historian, curator and cultural nists such as Kimberlé Crenshaw
policy specialist from York Univer- While the pie chart from Cana- (1989) and Nira Yuval-Davis (2006)
sity Joyce Zemans has demonstrat- dian Art illustrates the gendered have built on the work of hooks
ed, the work of feminist scholars, hierarchy of representation for with the concept of intersection-
activists and decision-makers have women in our art museums, it also ality recognizing that systems of
made an impact on the overall ad- demonstrates a related and further oppression such as racism, sexism,
vancement of women in the sector. troubling trend regarding the ra- class exploitation and homophobia
Having conducted extensive re- cial distribution of artists. Of the do not act independently from one
another. Instead, systems of pow-
er intersect with one another of-
ten further marginalizing diverse
voices.
Many museums have responded
to issues of diversity and identi-
ty-based exclusion with tempo-
rary exhibits focusing on an in-
dividual identity or through the
development of identity-based
museums such as the National
Museum of the American Indian
or the Aga Khan Museum. While
these interventions into histori-
cal and contemporary narratives
occur in separate or temporary
spaces, mainstream museums
Above: Gallery Demographics Average, included with permission from Cooley, A, continue to develop Euro-centric
Lou, A. and Morgan-Feir, C. “Canada’s Galleries Fall Short: The Not So Great White heteronormative collections and
North,” Canadian Art, April 2015
exhibition programs. In order to
14
FEATURE ARTICLE
transform the museum as an institution in a funda- References
mental way, an intersectional approach to museology Cooley, A, Lou, A. and Morgan-Feir, C. “Canada’s Galleries Fall
is needed to critically challenge the structures of power Short: The Not So Great White North,” Canadian Art, April
2015. http://canadianart.ca/features/canadas-galleries-fall-
that inform our organizational structure, our processes short-the-not-so-great-white-north/
of collection and curation, and the physical structures
Crenshaw, Kimerlé, “Demarginalizing the Intersection
of our museum spaces. of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of
Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist
Politics,” in University of Chicago Legal Forum, Vol 1989: 1.
Some museums over the last decade have indeed taken
up the task of intersectionality, creating what Eilean Duncan, Carol, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums,
New York: Routledge, 1995.
Hooper-Green has described as the “post-museum”. Here,
the museum as an institution can evolve from a repos- Hooks, Bell. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Woman and Feminism.
New York, NY: Routledge, 2015.
itory of objects to a model of participatory pedagogy
focused on working collaboratively with communities in Hooper-Greenhill, E. Museums and the Interpretation of
Visual Culture, London: Routledge, 2001.
the creation and sharing of knowledge. Sharing author-
ity with their public(s), these institutions bring multiple Impey, O. and MacGregor, A., The Origins of Museums: The
Cabinets of Curiosities in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century
(often under-represented) voices to the table to develop Europe, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
their institutional strategic plan, determine best practice
Janes R. & Conaty, G., editors. Looking Reality in the Eye:
for collections policy, and develop exhibitions co-creat- Museums and Social Responsibility. Calgary, Alberta:
ed by local knowledge keepers, museum professionals, University of Calgary Press, 2005.
scholars and community members. Keindl, Anthony, ed. Obsession, Compulsion, Collection: On
Objects, Display, Culture and Interpretation. Banff Centre
Press, Banff, 2004.
In many ways, the concept of the museum was devel-
oped as the “master’s house,” reinforcing patriarchal nar- Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.
Trumansburg, NY: 1984.
ratives of exploitation and colonization. However, mu-
seums can also function as critical sites for constructive Nira Yuval-Davis, “Intersectionality and Feminist Politics,”
European Journal of Women’s Studies, 133, 2006.
dialogue and discussion around issues of representation,
inclusion and equity that make a positive impact on the Zemans, Joyce. “A Tale of Three Woman: The Visual Arts in
Canada/A Current Account/ing.” RACAR, vol. XXV, 1 -2, 2001.
lived experience of community members. Working with
tools both from within museum practice, as well as those Zemans, Joyce. “Where are all the Women? Updating the
Account!” RACAR, vol. 38, No.1, 2013.
tools that emerge from knowledge and resources within
our communities, it is possible to transform the muse-
ums and enact real change.
Tania Muir is the Director
of the Cultural Manage-
ment Programs in the Di-
vision of Continuing Stud-
ies at the UVic. Prior to her
work at the University of
Victoria, Tania worked in
the museum and gallery
field developing innovative
educational programs for diverse audiences. She is also
the President of the BC Museums Association.
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