Clyde Fitch Report: At the heart of the gender parity debate–in my humble opinion–is a determination of value. What we value, what we perceive has value, we encourage and support. By not supporting gender parity (or diversity in accolades, or different abilities in casting), we’re essentially saying “this work has lesser value.” But we know that’s not true.
4 comments:
As much as I appreciate Ms. Thomas' acknowledgement of female artists as in need of support, I can't help feeling her perspective is a bit male savior complex-y. In short: Devra Thomas is yet another woman to be so intrinsically influenced by the institution of patriarchal domination that she cannot see how she is playing to it. And, in short (for real this time): NO, DEVRA. No, we should not be asking our dear male superiors to make special efforts to show appreciation of us "females" during "love month." We should be able to believe that they will do this all the time, regardless of the month, regardless of stereotypical gender requirements such as child care and babysitting. We should be able to rely on an intrinsic understanding of equality without money or special attention or freaking massages coming into play. Buy her a massage? Really? How about you buy yourself a book on feminism. Yeah, us art ladies need support and acknowledgement - but asking for anything different from that which our male colleagues already receive undermines the whole concept of equality itself, YOU FOOL. Just go to a gallery, a play, a reading, a concert, a display like you would go to any other - with the intention of supporting an artist. A damn good artist. And if you have the option to go to something being produced by a male artist or something being produced by a female artist, go to the female artist's production because you know it will probably be far more interesting and have a lot more to say than something being made by the same type of person who makes everything that gets seen. Support the undervalued not because you know they need saving but because you know they don't and you want to support their amazing work anyway. God, Devra. I'm sick of this. Equality is not a list of steps to be checked off. It's a decision you have to make. So make it, and then please rewrite this disgusting attempt at a tutorial.
With Anger and Heavy Gesticulation,
You Resident Feminist Fairy
Yay! It's so interesting reading articles like this because when I think about supporting women in the arts, it seems very obvious that the first way to do that would be to buy their plays, or go she shows directed by them, but what this article touched on that I didn't necessarily think about were the bigger picture things, that give women an opportunity to not only sustain their art and be able to live on it, but be able to create it. It is super important for women to feel like they can be both a mother and have a very strong, and prosperous career. Too many artistic institutions do not give maternity leave, and do not allow women to feel like they don't have to make a choice between motherhood and a career. While it is important that we go see women's shows and that we support them financially, it is more if not equally important that we support women socially, and emotionally. I really enjoyed this article, and I think even as a woman it put some things in perspective, about the trajectory of my life and career that I hadn't thought about yet.
When I first read this article earlier in the week, I was wondering if any else would feel as incredibly patronized by it as I did. Natalia’s comment gave me my answer. The male savior complex is so real and alive in this article I had to google the author because I just couldn’t believe it was written by a woman. It feels dismissive of female art, like a silly hobby that you should support just because you like the female and want to make her feel better. The only thing I liked about this article at all was the first couple of sentences where she talked about how we value the art we perceive to have value. But female artists do not want their art valued because “Oooooo, it was made by a girl, good for her doing something with herself!” We don’t want special treatment, we just want people to try and dismiss their preconceived notations that tend to make them gravitate towards male art and instead just appreciate the art that moves them and they connect to, no matter who made it. We don’t massages and babysitting, we don’t need you to plan out our work time and make us spend time with other female artists. We just want respect and an equal chance! It hurts me that this is a woman whose worldview has been so warped by our patriarchal society that this is what she thinks equality and feminism is.
The first thing I noticed about this article is that it doesn’t say just female artists, it says, “female-identified artists.” I would ask, where is the line among female, female-identified, and male, but that seems like a topic for another realm and certainly can’t be addressed in 150 words. The article has a lot of great ways to support female artists, but it seems like a lot of them aren’t specifically for female artists. Given that most of the items on the list could apply to any artist, I think the most important on this list are the ones the ones that make gender parity a priority. Pay and submissions of work are just two of the ways in which the gender gap needs to be closed. With support for the arts being cut in many places, it is especially important that women are supported. Although, it is most important that artists across the board are paid enough to make a living and not have a second job.
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