Why did it take a course in college for me to realize and learn about so many great women in art? In one of the videos shown in class, people were being asked to name one female artist. Most people could not come up with one. In this class, Professor Caçoilo asked us during the first lecture to come up with five, and in a room of about thirty people we struggled to get to that number. Throughout history there have been great and brilliant women artists, but why are they so unknown? Why do more men get exhibited at the biggest museums? The numbers are quite disappointing. There have been some advances throughout time in regards to this issue, but I want to highlight the huge gaps that still exist between men and women in the art world.

The Guerrilla Girls, who we learned about in this course, describe themselves as “feminist masked avengers in the tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Wonder Woman and Batman” (The Guerrilla Girls). They were founded in 1985 and their mission is to expose discrimination and gender inequality in politics, art, film, and pop culture. They are women who want to expose the numbers in hopes of changing how things are, or at least get the facts out there and make more people aware.

The way they want to get the word out is by making posters with statistics that relate to this issue. I have picked some of the posters that caused the greatest impact to me. I could not believe the stats on some of these. It is almost unbelievable that these numbers are true. The first poster that caught my attention was about the number of women who had one-person exhibitions.

How many women had one-person exhibitions at NYC museums in 1985? Can you guess? At the Guggenheim, zero. At the Metropolitan, zero. At the Modern, one. At the Whitney, zero. Ok, so how about in 2015? You would think, well thirty years have passed, I think those numbers had to have gone up significantly. Wrong! For 2015 the numbers are as follows; Guggenheim, one, Metropolitan, one, Modern, two and Whitney, one.

The second poster that caught my attention was one we covered in class. In 1989, The Guerrilla Girls went further into the issue and focused on the numbers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They counted the number of nude females against the number of male nudes, as well as the number of female artists. The numbers are shocking and this prompted their poster with the question “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female”.

“A member of the Guerrilla Girls, going under the pseudonym Frida Kahlo in honor of the female artist, said “After about 5 minutes of research we found that it was worse than we thought: the most influential galleries and museums exhibited almost no women artists. When we showed the figures around, some said it was an issue of quality, not prejudice. Others admitted there was discrimination, but considered the situation hopeless.  The artists blamed the dealers, the dealers blamed the collectors, the collectors blamed the critics, and so on. We decided to embarrass each group by showing their records in public.” (“Are Women Still a Minority in Art Museums?”)

In 2012 the Guerrilla Girls looked at the numbers again. Less that 4% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 76% of the nudes are female. Slight change, however, it is not good enough. In 2007, another poster was published and the dirt on museums just keeps on growing. This is the third poster that caught my attention because of the unbelievable stats included in it. This one is titled “Horror on the National Mall! Thousands of Women locked in basements of D.C museums!”

This poster is in the format of a tabloid magazine titled, “Not OK Weekly, The Guerrilla Girls’ Scandal Rag”, in lieu of the tabloid magazine title OK Weekly. It is filled with crazy stats. In it is said that “our national museums have paltry collections of art by women, and almost all of it is kept in storage, not display”. Wow! So they own art by women but choose not display it? Hmm. Now take a look at this one; “Which museum has the least art by women and artists of color on view?” National Gallery of Art- 98% male and 99.9% white. National Portrait Gallery- 93% male and 99% white. Hirshhorn Museum- 95% male and 94% white. American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery- 88% male and 91% white.

This other stat ties to the one from the first poster I mentioned and provides the male number from the National Gallery in D.C. “Is the National Gallery Boy Crazy? Only 3 one-person exhibitions of women in the last 10 years, compared to 68 by men”. The ratio is 3/68, again, very disappointing! The Guerrilla Girls plea to the viewers of the poster; “If you’re shocked by these stats, join us! Demand that museums use our tax dollars to tell the whole story of our culture”. Are you shocked? Will you do anything to help change this?

Why do you think this happens? Why is women’s art not being displayed the same as men’s? What do you think the answer to change this would be? I believe that the reason is because we live in a patriarchal society where we are taught since a young age that this is the way things are supposed to be. It is passed on from generation to generation, and we are not doing anything to change it.

 Nobody questions this, or not enough of us do. I am a woman and before this class I had no idea this was an issue. I never stopped to think about this and how huge of a deal this is. Women are not being written in our history, it has taken women to discover and get the greatest women artists known. The last poster by the Guerrilla Girls that impacted me is what I will leave you with so you can think about this issue, and hopefully raise your voice to help towards the change. Let’s trend #GenderEqualityInArt, because we are only seeing less than half the picture. I encourage you to visit the Guerrilla Girls website and take a look at the rest of the posters.

Works Cited

"Are Women Still a Minority in Art Museums?" New Britain Museum of American Art. 3 Dec. 2010. Web. 21 Apr. 2015. <https://nbmaa.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/are-women-still-a-minority-in-art-museums/>.

"GUERRILLA GIRLS: Fighting Discrimination with Facts, Humor and Fake Fur." GUERRILLA GIRLS. The Guerrilla Girls. Web. 21 Apr. 2015. <http://www.guerrillagirls.com>.