Sally-

The premise of your dissertation sounds right on.  Illuminated by you
ideas, it is interesting to observe that in the rather grueling world of
museum directorships, where primarily male directors do battle with
trustees and hunt and capture huge sums of donor money, the salaries tend
to be much better.  The discrepency between compensation levels for
directors and curators (directors sometimes earning five times the amount
of a curator) could be seen as mirroring the tradional male (hunter,
breadwinner) and female (housekeeper) roles.  A talented and experienced
curator is likely as hard to find as a talented and experienced director,
and each is integral to the success of the museum endeavor.

It might be an interesting component of your research to find out if in
fact the director/curator compensation discrepency is as great as I believe
it to be.
Please keep us informed as you progress on this interesting topic.


Stephen Nowlin
Vice President
Director, Williamson Gallery
Art Center College of Design
1700 Lida Street
Pasadena, CA 91103 USA (818)396-2397  fax (818)405-9104 [log in to unmask]