Broken Frames: Retention of Women in the Arts and Leadership Accountability

In 2022, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey revealed that women comprised 61% of the workforce in U.S. art museums but held only 47% of directorial positions. In museums with budgets over $15 million, this figure drops to 41%. While the gender imbalance in leadership roles is documented, the retention of women in the arts remains underexamined.

At a symposium on gender equity at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in September 2023, Dr. Amelia Jones, chair of art history and theory at the University of Southern California, stated, “Representation without structural change is shallow. Retention is about providing a terrain where women can thrive.”

Barriers exist at every level of the art world. A 2022 study by Art Basel and UBS found that women artists made up just 39% of primary market sales globally, despite being the majority of MFA graduates for over a decade. In academia, tenure systems often reinforce gendered expectations, with women disproportionately assigned roles that do not advance their careers. Frances Morris, former director of Tate Modern, has emphasized the intensive fundraising demands on women leaders, which are compounded by biases regarding emotional labor.