There was a study done of the Museum Labour Force in Canada in 1989 (may
be a bit out-of-date, but it's all I have at hand)--it found a near even
split of male to female workers at 50.3 and 49.7 percent respectively.
The study also found that women "tended to be concentrated in smaller
institutions and lower paid jobs."
This finding surprised me, as since 1994, it has been my perception
that there are considerably more women in museum work (maybe that's just
a reflection of the museum types I'm most familiar with). I have heard,
anecdotally, that this is due to the traditional low wages paid to
(usually) highly educated people in the museum realm--men, because of
their gender, had an easier time applying their skills and education to
higher-paying jobs in the corporate world, leaving the lower-paying
cultural jobs to be filled by women (in a perfect world, this would all
be past history, but I suspect a gender bias still lingers...).
With regards to women in the top museum jobs, of the three institutions
I've worked for, I'm now at the only one that has had a man in the
Director/Curator position; and the person he reports to in the City is a
woman!
Cheers,
------------------------------------------------------------
Tim McShane, Assistant--Cultural History
Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery
1302 Bomford Crescent S.W.
Medicine Hat, AB T1A 5E6
(403) 502-8587
>>> [log in to unmask] 11/20/02 08:43AM >>>
Hello Museum-Lers,
As a "White (non-Hispanic) Male" - sometimes "Caucasian" - I perceive
that I am in the minority when it comes to museum employment. In
reviewing the staff web pages on several museum web sites, I see the
ratio of women to men goes from equal - 1 to 1 - to very unequal - 4
to
1, in one case 6 to 1. (I can't tell about other E.O.E.
classifications.)
So, my questions:
Is this a false perception?
Am I missing something in the bigger picture?
Are men a minority in museum work?
If men are in a minority, what do you believe contributes to
this?
Truly, I'm not looking to initiate a new round in the "blame game";
I'm
just trying to figure out how to find a job where I can use the
education and experience I have so far managed to acquire.
Sincerely,
Jay Heuman
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