Women in the Museum by Joan H. Baldwin Anne W. Ackerson

Author:Joan H. Baldwin, Anne W. Ackerson [Joan H. Baldwin, Anne W. Ackerson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Archaeology
ISBN: 9781351732178
Google: zAkqDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-06-26T04:32:34+00:00

The majority of our survey respondents were women. When we asked them to describe female leadership, they responded with positive descriptors ranging from “balanced” to “problem-solving.” The most frequently cited traits were “strong,” “collaborative,” and “compassionate.” Among the negative descriptors offered for female leaders were words like “difficult,” “mixed bag,” “conflict-averse,” “defensive,” and “threatening.” Words like these are part of the perfect storm of language and gender stereotyping found not only in museums, but also in offices everywhere.

When men take charge and women take care, stereotyping occurs. Though you may not have heard of this particular stereotype, you may have experienced it. Have you ever watched women tidying a room after a meeting while men leave deep in conversation? Or perhaps you recall female staff leaving the same meeting with “to-do” lists assigned by men? One of our respondents answered our survey with this comment, “Women voice their issues but may not do so as forcefully in the company of senior staff,” while another was more direct: “Women sometimes do not feel it is their place to share an alternative idea or their ideas are undervalued. Praise for a job well done is sometimes misplaced to an undeserving male counterpart. Tasks, especially those that have a physical component, are automatically assigned to a man despite the fact that a woman might be just as capable or better suited.”

And then there is another office-place trope, which has sadly found its way from the for-profit world to the museum world. You may have witnessed male staff providing female staff with long and detailed explanations during meetings as if the woman in question had recently arrived from an interplanetary quest rather than the office next door. On social media and a host of Internet sites this is known as “mansplaining.” It is painful for recipients, and is frequently delivered by older White males to younger females who are too polite to say they have something else to do.

We should note that stereotyping isn’t solely the province of men. We all come to work encumbered and imprinted with social stereotypes, and both genders bring preconceived judgments to the workplace. But these same stereotypes prompt unfortunate generalizations that tinge everything from job interviews to board meetings to staff discussions. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the time, they are expressed in conversation or silently in the thought bubbles above our heads, which, in turn, prompts stereotypical behavior.

There is a great deal of research on social stereotyping, some so complex it could easily overwhelm a book like this. One argument that intrigued us is by two social psychologists, Edward Jones and Richard Nisbett. They theorize that when we meet or interview someone for the first time, there is a quantum leap between us as observers and the individual we’re observing, who they refer to as the actor.1 They suggest that in those situations we focus on the actor, writing, “We emphasize things about the actor—characteristics, traits, and so on—that seem plausible explanations for her behavior. And

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