The art world is not as fair to women as you may think. Having been an artist all of my life, I have seen the men in art groups and in organizations get lots of the glory (and paid work) while the women artists have been ignored or diminished in seriousness. This discrimination has played out like that for decades in every group of artists I have been a part of, and I have personally watched it happen with a lot of frustration. I have often wondered what a talented female artist has to do to get the same notice and recognition for her work as the male artists. Naturally the men involved in this system then develop an overinflated sense of their own value as an artist, and some even start to develop bad attitudes about women artists themselves. I have observed this also.
It’s a difficult situation because women’s work across many fields is often diminished and undervalued in America, while the same work done by men is more valued and lauded, so it’s a cultural problem in this country in general. It’s also been going on for hundreds of years. (Some people can’t even name a female artist they are aware of but can rattle of 10 or more male artists. This is not because there has ever been a lack of good female artists. Ever.) So I was very excited to find the article below, which I am republishing from Artnet, and which addresses parts of this problem.
In partnership with the Association of Women in the Arts, Artnet presents a series of stories amplifying the voices of women shaping the fine-arts sector. Through candid conversations, industry leaders and emerging talents share their experiences, challenges, and visions for the future. These stories, paired with insights from our groundbreaking survey on gender equity among arts professionals, offer a deeper understanding of the barriers women face—and the transformative change they are driving in the art world.
Within the last decade, there have been renewed efforts to highlight how gender-based discrimination has impacted women’s careers in the arts and beyond. But while these systemic issues have been brought to light, what can be done to improve women’s circumstances?
“Hardwiring Change,” an inaugural survey conducted by Artnet News and the Association of Women in the Arts (AWITA) reveals that despite progress, women in the art world still face significant barriers, with pay inequity, work-life balance, and lack of mentorship emerging as top concerns. The findings, based on responses from more than 2,000 industry professionals globally, highlight persistent challenges in career advancement and leadership representation, while also shedding light on the tools that have proved effective in creating positive change.
The 2025 survey primarily reflects respondents from the U.K. and U.S., with a majority white demographic—roughly 80 percent—highlighting the need for a more diverse respondent pool. This study serves as a foundation for future research to better address intersectionality in the art sector.
Courtesy of AWITA.
“We know that that there are inequities,” said Jessica Porter, the head of ArtTable, a U.S.-based nonprofit that has been dedicated to women’s professional leadership in the arts since 1980. The question is now how we deal with them. “How can we move forward, with things that people can do in their lives every day to improve the situation?”
Pay Transparency Is Top of Mind
Historically, pay has been one of the most quantifiable areas of inequity between men and women and the Hardwiring Change survey underscored women’s continued concerns around equal pay in the arts workplace. Additionally, salary transparency, or the lack thereof, remains the biggest obstacle to ensuring pay equity.
Although the survey did not gather salary information, the gender pay gap is an acknowledged phenomenon across industries. A 2022 study from the Pew Research Center found that U.S. women earned an average of 82 percent as much as men—with even worse figures for women of color.
When asked how they perceived their pay rate in their current role compared to that of men in similar positions, 18.4 percent of Hardwiring Change respondents believed their salary to be significantly lower, and 35.9 percent said somewhat lower. Around a quarter said their pay was about the same as their male peers while less than one percent believed their salaries were higher.
© Artnet and the Association of Women in the Arts.
Several commented that salaries in the arts are lower than in other sectors, which may prove an additional barrier to women of color and low-income backgrounds. Nearly 28 percent of survey respondents reported being unpaid for their first job, illustrating how women with additional financial support have a leg up within the industry.
Education level also did not strongly correlate with higher salaries, according to the survey. More than 62 percent of respondents reported holding a higher degree, and master’s degrees were more prevalent among women aged under 45. This suggests that younger women are investing in additional education to professionalize earlier in their career but have yet to see notable pay gains.
Recently, ArtTable improved its own pay rates and created transparent salary bands—a small but concrete step toward overcoming the larger pay equity issue. After conducting its own survey in 2022 and 2023 on gender and pay equity, the organization found that U.S. entry-level jobs in the industry were generally paying between $45,000 and $50,000.
Porter then hired a consultant to help upwardly refine their pay bands. “Each employee worked with the consultant to talk about their daily activities and roles in relation to the original job description,” she explained, adding that they only had to make a few adjustments to stay in line with similarly sized nonprofits.
Institutional salaries are typically lower than salaries in commercial firms like auction houses and galleries, however, and salaries can vary widely by region. And while realistic salary bands help create transparency internally, experts say that the ranges are often too large and updated infrequently, which tends to negate the intention behind them.
Auctioneer Phyllis Kao leads the sale of works at Sotheby’s auction house. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
To implement salary transparency effectively within the industry, organizations should publish salary ranges for roles and conduct regular pay equity audits, according to Rosie Allan, a managing partner at Sophie Macpherson Ltd. (SML), a recruitment firm focused on the art industry. SML has been leading the charge on this front after launching an annual salary report in 2022.
The latest report, published on March 17, reveals that since 2022, average pay slightly increased in the U.K. and Europe and decreased in the U.S. (Still, U.S. employees typically outearn U.K. and European employees.) White professionals had the highest median salaries of any racial group, while Black professionals earned the lowest in both the U.K. and the U.S. On average, men earned more than women.
“When companies openly share pay data, they help eliminate unconscious bias and ensure that remuneration is based on merit rather than demographics,” Allan said, noting why it is critical to publish industry salary data going forward, especially for marginalized groups. “Transparency fosters accountability and cultivates a workplace culture rooted in fairness and trust.”
Representation in Leadership Matters
The Hardwiring Change survey also found that there continues to be a small number of women in leadership positions in larger art firms, despite a high proportion of women workers in the industry as a whole. This suggests that structural barriers within larger organizations may hinder women’s career advancement, reinforcing the need for targeted initiatives to support gender equity at senior levels.
Around 70 percent of all respondents working in micro-businesses, or businesses with fewer than 10 employees, reported that their workplace is comprised of more than 50 percent women employees. There is also more female representation in leadership roles among smaller firms. Nearly half of respondents who reported working in micro-businesses and 34.1 percent of respondents working in firms with 11 to 50 employees said women filled 75 to 100 percent of senior roles in their workplaces.
Courtesy of AWITA.
These figures diminish significantly in larger organizations. Just 8.7 percent of respondents in firms with more than 251 employees said that women filled more than 75 percent of leadership roles and 18.2 percent reported at least parity in senior roles, even as the overall proportion of women in the workforce increases with organizational size.
There are multiple, networked reasons for this drop-off, but many women cite a lack of organizational advocacy that stems from unconscious bias and discrimination that starts early in their careers. Around 22.3 percent of respondents said that the biggest barrier to entry for women in the industry was unconscious bias and discrimination. It’s an issue that is, of course, much bigger than the art world. Artnet and AWITA followed up with roughly 450 survey takers to get more clarity on this topic, and of the 140 who responded to additional questions, 89 percent said they felt their gender was a barrier to their career progression rather than anything inherent in the industry.
One anonymous respondent said the “biggest, loudest” example of this was when she worked in the corporate environment of an auction house, where “Ivy League-educated, super-qualified women” were often hired as assistants, while similarly educated and qualified men were hired for private sales roles. “Basically, they just got put in the right swimming pool to start with.” she said. “It’s true you can move out of a support or counter role if you have great senior advocates in your pocket, you can promote your way up and out… but that’s still a big ‘if.’”
Could this be changing? Earlier this year, Christie’s tapped Bonnie Brennan as its new CEO, only the second woman to hold the role in its 260-year history. She said that she had been supported by both men and women leaders throughout her 13 years at the company. The auction house now has both a Women’s Leadership Network and a company-wide mentorship program.
“I feel very responsible for paying that forward and to be a voice of support and advocacy for those who follow at younger stages of their careers,” Brennan explained.
Since becoming director of the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011, Simone Wicha said she has noticed a lot of change when it comes to women’s leadership in the field.
“I’ve seen a lot of women directors stepping into roles at major museums—and I think it’s a really positive thing,” she said. When she first joined the Association of Art Museum Directors (AMD), the only other woman university art museum director she met at the time was Ann Philbin of the Hammer Museum at University of California, Los Angeles. Since then, the AMD has launched a program dedicated to supporting women leaders in the field, according to Wicha.
She’s also hired many women for leadership positions and senior curatorial roles over the years. “To me, part of the trick is trusting in the capacity for talent that may not necessarily have had that exact experience before,” Wicha said.
Lai Hsiang-ling, the head of the New Taipei City Art Museum, which opens in April, said that women currently direct all five of Taiwan’s major art museums.
The Taiwanese government has “a system to encourage young leaders to advance,” Lai explained, adding that she received a grant to study in the U.S. from the government.
Government support for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs can also provide women with inroads to leadership positions, although this varies widely by region and, in the case of the U.S., is declining. Generally speaking, however, advocacy initiatives are left up to individual organizations, and more often than not, individuals within those organizations.
Visitors explore work by Turner Prize winning British sculptor Veronica Ryan. Photo: Katrina Duffey. Courtesy of AWITA.
Yet there are some art firms rethinking how traditional hierarchical business structures work in order to build in better career development opportunities for their staff. Goodman Gallery, which has locations in Cape Town, New York, and London created a “pod” structure for their artists liaison and sales teams. Instead of an artist having one specific person assigned to them, they work with one of four teams drawn from the gallery’s international locations, which each collectively manages about 10 artists. So far, the benefits are manifold.
“If you have a younger artist liaison with less global experience, they can draw on the experience and relationships held by the senior person in that team,” gallery senior director Jo Stella-Sawicka explained, adding that she has had “very positive feedback” from younger members of the team saying they feel supported. “It’s been helpful for them in negotiating and navigating complex institutional projects.”
Flexibility is Key
Still, even if workplaces offer more development opportunities for women, some may struggle to take them due to pressures outside of the office. The influence of family planning on career trajectories emerged as a significant theme in the Hardwiring Change survey, with 93.4 percent of respondents reporting that childcare considerations impacted their professional decisions. This includes 5 percent who chose not to have children due to career pressures, 29 percent who radically altered their working arrangements after having children, and 8 percent who delayed or declined career advancement opportunities to accommodate family needs.
The social demands of the art world, which is a very relationship-driven industry, are considerable, and participation in industry events is often seen as a key factor in career progression. Many jobs in the field are reliant on after-hours events such as exhibition openings, evening auctions, fundraising events, and client dinners, as well as international travel for exhibitions and fairs. The demands outside of regular business hours can be particularly difficult to juggle for women, on whom childcare and elderly care responsibilities disproportionately fall.
“I never shied away from the fact that I had kids,” Stella-Sawicka said, adding that she brought her children to fairs or openings. “You live in expensive cities where childcare is expensive, and you just have to find a way to make it work in your life.”
This gendered work-life balance struggle is not a challenge unique to the art world. Last year, the Gender Equity Policy Institute released “The Free-Time Gender Gap” report, based on data from the 2022 American Time Use Survey. It found that women spent on average twice as much time as men on unpaid childcare and household work. In the art world, this is compounded by a general lack of flexibility and part-time work.
Many survey respondents reported career setbacks due to motherhood, including being overlooked for promotions, demoted after maternity leave, or feeling unable to return to work, forcing them to take years off and struggle to restart their careers.
Photo: Johannes Simon/Getty Images.
Government-mandated employer responsibilities and employee rights vary widely by country, especially when it comes to maternal leave and family support programs. But Lai noted that, in accordance with Taiwanese law, workers are entitled to overtime holidays or pay after working beyond standard hours, which helps standardize expectations inside and outside of work hours.
Earlier this month, the Economist released its annual glass-ceiling index which analyzes working conditions for women across the 29 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in part based on maternity leave and child support standards. Of the top 10 countries, eight were European nations, and the other two were Australia and New Zealand. The U.K. ranked 14th, and the U.S. came in 19th—it is the only country in the OECD that does not have federally mandated parental leave. This lack of support may force women out of the workforce.
More flexible work arrangements may be crucial to helping solve this problem for women. “We have joked at times that we need to have a little creche nearby wherever our event is taking place—but joked rather seriously,” said Susan J. Mumford, the CEO of Association of Women Art Dealers (AWAD), which she founded in 2009. AWAD has found it works best to vary the times of its events to accommodate members’ differing schedules, and to livestream events online.
For its evening sales, Christie’s makes sure employees have plenty of advance notice that they will be working late, so they can make any necessary arrangements. The auction house also allows hybrid work, with some remote days. At ArtTable, employees work from the office two days a week and remote the rest of the time.
“You can’t assume that people are just available for these things outside of your standard working hours,” ArtTable’s Porter said, adding that flexible work hours are a core component of their organizational approach. “It’s simple. Come in at noon if you’re going to be at this event until 8 p.m.”
Any employee can utilize flex time for any reason to adjust their schedule at home or in office, Porter said. “When we did our survey, this was one of the primary things that many of our respondents wanted and needed in their daily life so we have remained as flexible as possible.”
Collection galleries at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Photo: Jennifer Hughes. Courtesy of NMWA.
At Goodman Gallery, the pod system is also helping employees split the responsibilities for travel for international artist exhibitions.
“If I’m not able to travel to Milan because my children are doing their secondary school exams, as is happening right now, one of my colleagues can go, because we hold equally strong relationships with that artist,” Stella-Sawicka said.
Moving Forward Through Mentorship
The survey responses highlighted mentorship as an underutilized yet highly effective tool for advancing women’s careers, and demand for expanded mentoring and networking opportunities emerged as overwhelmingly strong across all career stages. Unlike advocacy, which aims to highlight an individual’s achievements and create opportunities for them, mentoring is a relationship in which an experienced individual shares knowledge, advice, and encouragement to help someone grow personally and professionally.
More than a third (37.5 percent) of survey respondents identified mentorship programs as the most effective way to improve access for women entering their field. Additionally, 31.6 percent highlighted increased networking opportunities as the best way to enhance access for early-career women.
“When I was what I call a baby art dealer in Soho in London in 2006, I actually hand wrote letters to a few women art dealers asking if they would mentor me,” Mumford said.
Only one meeting ever came of it, she recalled, but “it was important even being validated to have this person who was senior to me, who had amazing experience, talk with me, and knowing that there was help available out there.”
Today, there are more formal mentorship opportunities available. AWITA was founded by a cohort of four women in 2017. The membership currently stands at 1500 and offers year-round online and in-person events; it’s NXT GEN gender inclusive initiative is targeted to those in the first five years of their career. Art Market Mentors, founded by Christie’s veterans Cat Manson and Caroline Sayan in 2020, has also proved popular. The program’s latest session, which is about to begin, matches 135 emerging professionals with experts who can provide valuable career guidance.
“As you go through your career, sometimes you can be promoted into roles where you don’t necessarily have the skills in place day one,” Manson said. “That stretch is really important, but a leadership program or a mentoring program can really help support talent on their journey.”
© Artnet and the Association of Women in the Arts.
When women are finally promoted to the highest levels of leadership, mentorship can be an important tool in ensuring they succeed and pave the way for more women leaders. Interestingly, however, the continuing desire for mentorship persists well beyond early career stages, with 79 percent of mid-career and senior professionals expressing interest in receiving mentorship, according to the Hardwiring Change survey.
Mentoring may also be key to building intersectional diversity among women in the field. In the U.K., Meg Molloy, the director of communications at London’s Josh Lilley gallery, launched Working Arts Club last year, geared towards professionals in the arts from working-class backgrounds. In the U.S., organizations such as Women of Color in the Arts and Black Girls in Art Spaces have emerged in the last few years. Meanwhile, ArtTable has launch a diversity-based fellowship program for young art professionals and students.
Visualizing Change
Sara Kay, the founder of New York’s Professional Organization of Women in the Arts (POWarts), says that the most positive change in the industry since starting her women’s art organization in 2008 is that “more women are actually talking about the lack of equity in the arts.” She added that there needs to be a “unified front among women” in order in enact long-term, lasting change.
If the inaugural Hardwiring Change survey reveals anything, it is that it is not enough to pay lip service to the idea of helping women advance in their art careers. We need to look at the actual data and respond to what it is telling us about the structural barriers facing women.
Following the data closely over time will allow us to track improvements—and the lack thereof. When organizations hit on successful strategies, whether for increasing pay equity, improving work-life balance, or providing mentorship and professional development opportunities, they need to share their experiences, so that others can learn from and emulate those strategies.
Change can sometimes seem slow, especially when there is a lot of it to be made. But Manson said that when started at Christie’s 25 years ago, “women actually weren’t allowed to wear trousers,” something that seems comical in 2025. It is a reminder that huge change is not only possible, but already happening.
Margaret Carrigan contributed reporting.
By Sarah Cascone
