Ugggg -Two Steps Forward and One Step Back

Here are a few charts from the book After The Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art. I know we can't literally blame everything thats ever gone wrong on the Bush administration but looking at these charts I feel like I could form a pretty good argument that the downward spike of shows and books by female artists in the 2000s had something to do with the mind set our country fell into in this last decade.


Gallery Shows By Male and Female Artists


Number of Museum Shows by Male and Female Artists



Number of Monographic Publications of Male and Female Artists

Starving (Lady) Artist

The NEA has just released a comprehensive study of the pay differences between men and women working in the arts. Sadly, working in the arts does not set us apart from the rest of the work force. In fact women in the arts make .75 to every dollar that a male artist makes. That's two cents less than the overall gender pay gap.
As the chairman of the NEA, Dana Gioia, puts it "Committed and entrepreneurial, women artists are making enormous progress, but still lag behind their male colleagues economically, especially in fields such as photography, design, and architecture.”
Don't be afraid to ask around and find out how much the guys you work with are making. I know this is hard, been there done that, but over the years it will totally matter. I once heard financial advisor Suze Orman suggest that a woman tack on 20% to a freelance job "Because women generally underestimate their worth". This is a good lesson for freelancers and fine artists.
There are a whole bunch of other interesting statistics you can check out. You can download the study here:http://www.arts.gov/research/ResearchNotes_chrono.html
Or read about it here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2008/12/nea-women.html