Women ‘supporting act’ in the arts

Women continue to be under-represented in British cultural life, claim new statistics from feminist campaigning organisation UK Feminista.

Women continue to be under-represented in British cultural life, claim new statistics from feminist campaigning organisation UK Feminista.
Research revealed more than 70% of performances at Glastonbury 2010 were by all-male acts – performances by men outnumbered performances by women in a six to one ratio.
Of the albums shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize over the past decade, albums by men outnumber those by women by more than two to one.
Just 1.6% of the conductors and 4.1% of the composers who feature in the 2010 BBC Proms are female.
When it comes to the art world, 83% of the artists in the Tate Modern are men, while 70% of the artists featured in the Saatchi Gallery are men.
Only three women have ever won the Turner Prize (12%) and 70% of all artists nominated are men.
Kat Banyard, director of UK Feminista, said: ”Women are still the supporting act in British cultural life.  Despite more women pursuing careers in the arts than ever before, they remain a stark minority amongst some of the UK’s most prestigious cultural events, exhibtions and prizes.
”It isn’t just individual artists who pay the price for this cultural glass ceiling, it is all of us – everyone who enjoys the best and most diverse art that Britain has to offer.  Culture not only reflects society – but helps shape it, so the fact that women’s creative work is hidden and silenced on such a scale means we have a major problem.”
For every female character in television drama there are two male characters.  Just 7% of film directors are women.
In the world of literature, 38% of the authors listed for the Man Booker Prize in the past decade have been women., while men make up 70% of the winners of the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction in the last 10 years.   

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