On July 31, 1996, Sally Stanton said:

>Museum professionals are underpaid and undervalued because what they do
>is perceived as "soft", "nonessential", "nonprofit", "educational", and
>that means "not all that important", in a society where the dollar is
>almighty. Despite the fact that many women make more money than their
>husbands, despite the fact that many women support families without any
>help from a male breadwinner, despite the fact that most women now work
>for a majority of their lives, Americans subconsciously cling to the
>mystical ideal of the nuclear family and the male breadwinner.
>Until this changes, the arts and humanities will continue to take second
>place; museums will take a backseat to baseball stadiums, and museum
>professionals will be paid ridiculously low salaries (just as teachers
>were and in many cases still are) for work which pays well in other
>institutions.

Is it really an evil plot by a male dominated society to ensure the
continued oppression of women & children under their dubious superiority,
bound by the chains of traditional social roles?  I don't think so.

Look at the gradual feminization of clerical work following the Civil War.
Like most museum work and other educational roles, it is generally dependent
on intellectual more than physical ability.  A traditionally male field
until the war, workforce shortages allowed women to step in to clerical
work, as an expanding economy opened more and new postitions to the men they
displaced.  Facility in the field was explained by the patience & attention
to detail that is "natural" to women.  While natural ability of individuals
played a part in it, a stronger motivation for hiring women was & is their
WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT LOWER WAGES.

Similarly, the world of professional & semi-professional museum workers was
dominated by males until recently, and, with exceptions, men still dominate
the higher paying positions (not because they are men, but because the
positions often require a higher level of education, and women are still
playing catch up in the number of Phd's being earned).  The boom in museum
growth has also created a boom in entry level positions and positions in
institutions which do not require educational degrees (even if they really
should), with commensurate salaries.  Women stepped in & started to
numerically dominate the field.

Having started at low wages, even a small increase in pay looks huge
(believe me, I've been there).  Unaware or unmindful of the value of their
skills in the general workforce, staff, male or female, may be reluctant to
ask for more, preferring a job they love to a new car or a better house.  In
turn, why should museums offer more when their is such a large workforce
willing to work at low wages.  Those who cannot afford to make the trade off
either leave the field or never enter it.  Like it or not, fair or unfair,
women tend to stay.

A balance of ethics vs. economics is a better explanation for generally low
but gradualy rising wages found in the museum world.  The growing female
presence (real and perceived) in the field is a symptom, which may be
related to social roles, etc., but it is not the cause of low wages.

Margaret Lyman
Curator of Collections
Silver City Museum
SCMuseum@zianet