I think the perception of museum work, for some, does sort of fall under the
category of "arts", hence the large percentage of women, plus much of the
work done in museums is registration or cataloguing which is often viewed by
some as "clerical" or "woman's work" by some.
When I was taking my museum's studies our class was about 75% female upon
graduation.
George Garner commented "In more traditionally masculine subjects (e.g. war
museums) I usually see more male staff then female. This is, of course, a
gross generalization, and I hate to imply that men are solely into war and
women into art." - and he is right! (gross generalization, based on
observation and experience on my part)Most war or military museums are
predominantly staffed by men.
When I first started work at the Canadian War Museum, the women were in the
minority, occupying positions in cataloguing/registration, database admin,
secretarial or conservation (all lesser positions), with men in the
curatorial, administrative, exhibition, and directorial positions. However,
we did have a strange reversal and for a while the women were in the
majority - still in cataloguing/registration, database admin, secretarial
and conservation, but also in curatorial and "middle management" roles.
Today the numbers (men vs women) are pretty even. Half of the Collections
Managers/Curators are women, the three directors are men (no surprise
there!), strangely our education and exhibitions sections are all men? but
with a fairly equal scattering everywhere else.
Carol Reid
Collection Manager, Archives
Canadian War Museum
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