C100 Article

CIRCA 41, pp. 26-27, Speakers left to right: Anne Crilly, Helen Chadwick, Fionna Barber, Aileen McKeogh, May Stevens and Moira Roth; photo: Áine Farrell.

The Gender Gap

We asked four writers to look back over the last 21 years of art and visual culture in Ireland, with the aid of 99 back issues of CIRCA. Each writer was asked to address a different theme. Here Hilary Robinson tackles a hard issue with hard numbers, as she traces the gender balance back through time.

When I was asked to review CIRCA for its coverage and treatment of gender during the 99 issues of its existence I suggested that it would be interesting to produce a statistical, quantitative rather than qualitative survey. It is possible to produce arguments more or less persuasively about the presence of women, about the types of work that are being shown and where, but increasingly I am drawn to the importance of hard facts to back up and inform such arguments. Feminism, I am often told, is old fashioned, is no longer necessary, and is still a label that can do damage: students reject the term out of fear of being branded, or because they think the battles have all been won. But have they, though? When I was at art school in the 1970s the class was over 50% women: these women are now in their mid-40s, and, if the postfeminists have it right, are receiving equitable treatment. I sat down with the pile of CIRCAs, and counted until my eyes swivelled in my head.

Issue number		1-43		44-62		63-82		83-99		total
solo artist features	m	31		6		24		24		85
	w	8	21%	1	14%	6	20%	7	23%	22	21%
group features	m	12		2		9		4		26
	w	6	33%	0	0%	2	18%	6	60%	14	35%
solo reviews	m	138		68		107		169		482
	w	49	26%	33	33%	85	44%	108	39%	275	36%
group reviews	m	68		10		25		55		158
	w	26	28%	4	29%	14	36%	39	41%	83	34%
artist's pages	m	6		6		19		18		49
	w	4	40%	2	25%	9	32%	15	45%	30	38%
preview photos	m	22		26		55		0		103
	w	21	49%	16	38%	44	44%	n/a	n/a	81	44%
artists featured	m	277		118		239		270		903
	w	114	29%	56	32%	160	40%	175	39%	505	36%
artists with photos	m	532		250		425		500		1639
	w	165	24%	99	28%	227	35%	271	35%	733	31%
total no. of photos	m	743		261		425		642		2071
	w	241	25%	118	31%	227	35%	369	36%	955	32%
covers	m	30		5		10		20		65
	w	5	14%	4	44%	10	50%	6	23%	25	28%
feature writers	m	121		66		79		69		335
	w	85	41%	43	39%	57	42%	52	43%	227	40%
review writers	m	181		119		207		99		606
	w	132	42%	44	27%	156	43%	120	55%	452	43%
columnists	m	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	52		51		103
	w	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	18	26%	17	25%	35	25%
total writers	m	302		185		338		219		1044
	w	217	42%	87	32%	231	41%	189	46%	714	41%
features on gender		8		5		2		1		16
reviews on gender		3		4		2		4		13
Table 1: Number of solo artist features, group features, etc., broken down by gender (m=men, w=women) and CIRCA issue number; see text for fuller explanation. ('n/a' above= not applicable)

The chart (Table 1) needs a little explanation. The final two columns down show the overall numbers of men and women, and the percentage of women, in the whole run of CIRCA for a number of different categories. The column on the left lists the categories. Solo artist features lists the numbers of artists given feature articles to themselves. Solo reviews does the same in relation to review articles. I included interviews in the features category, and noted the person interviewed as the 'artist' (though sometimes they were curators or others). Group features indicates the numbers mentioned in features discussing a group of up to four artists, and group reviews refers to reviews of an exhibition of up to four artists. I did not count the number of artists mentioned in every feature - often artists would be referenced without discussing their work; nor did I count the artists in what is more commonly known as a group exhibition - like Perspective or EV+A: again, such reviews frequently mention names in passing without discussing the work. In retrospect, it would have been good to have done this: the results would have spoken much about the ways in which work is contextualised and validated. Artist's pages includes all page-projects by artists, including the Work in Process series; preview photos includes the Preview and Gallery series. Artists featured totals up the above categories.

The next two categories list the illustration of feature and review articles only: the artist's pages and preview photos are included above. Artists with photos counts the artist that have work illustrated in each issue, and total no. of photos counts the actual photos. Covers counts the cover boys and girls: bear in mind that on some issues, no artist's work graced the front covers, while on others, there may be up to four artists. Concerning writers, feature writers, review writers and columnists count the writers of those different types of articles; total writers adds these three categories.

I did not count advertisements and their images, nor editorial, diary, news, update, or similar articles and images. Nor did I count any of the supplements.

The downward columns break the run into different editorial regimes. Issues 1-43 were edited by an editorial panel, ranging between four and seven members, varying in composition. I did not add up the total numbers of men and women on the editorial panel. Issues 44-62 were edited with an editorial board and an editorial manager, Mark Robinson (no relation!). Issues 63-82 were edited by Tanya Kiang with an editorial board; and 83-99 by Peter FitzGerald, also with an editorial board. I felt it would be interesting to see how the representation of women in the magazine had developed under these different structures and leaderships. The figures throughout are given numerically and in percentage form. (See also Figures 1 through 4.)

Figure 1: Percentage of women artists given solo features, group features, solo reviews and group reviews in CIRCA, broken down by magazine issue number.

Figure 2: Absolute number of men and women artists given solo features, etc., broken down by magazine issue number.

Figure 3: Percentage of women artists given artist's pages, preview photos, etc., in CIRCA, broken down by magazine issue number.

Figure 4: Absolute number of men and women artists given artist's pages, etc., broken down by magazine issue number.

So: what can we make of these data? Overall, 36% of the artists featured in the magazine are women: a jot over a third. Not good, certainly not equal, against 64% men, but could be worse. But where are those women? Only 21% of artists given feature articles overall are women, against 79% men. Not good enough. This figure even dropped to a dismal 14% under Mark Robinson, but is now running at 23% - or in other words, more or less where we were 20 years ago. Women do best in the preview or gallery sections - 44% - but then this is an engineered means of placing images that are not deemed worthy of a review or feature: it is economical of space and means that the work is seen but not given the space for consideration. This section has been dropped by the present editor, Peter FitzGerald. He has, however, improved the level of women doing artist's pages or other visual projects in the magazine. At the same time, he has dropped the number of women with work on the front cover from 50% under Tanya Kiang (nice one, Tanya!) to a truly embarrassing 23%. Hmmm.

CIRCA 58, p. 34, 1991

The proportion of women artists who have photographs of their work has moved from around a quarter in the early days to around a third now. From my calculations, the overall number of photos of work by women is also now about a third - in other words, you are just as likely to get multiple images of your work, rather than just one photo, whether you are a man or a woman. You are just twice as likely to be illustrated if you are a man.What this statistic does not show is where those images are positioned, and again, this could be revealing. Bearing in mind that men are three times as likely as women to find themselves the subject of feature articles, it stands to reason that their photos are more likely to be in the front of the magazine. It was certainly the case that as I counted the images the women would often lag behind in the front half of the magazine, and catch up a bit in the second half. This was increasingly the case as the production values increased under both Tanya Kiang and Peter FitzGerald. What is also of interest here is the actual size and legibility of some of these images: while I did not count deliberately morphed or designed images, nor images that were installation shots of exhibitions rather than photos of work, I did notice that some of the images were being reproduced so small as to give no visual information about the work other than the general colour. This has been occurring increasingly under the present editorship (or designer: I suspect that the advent of digital processing has much to do with this). So although the overall number of images has been increasing, the information gleaned from them has not necessarily also increased. And of course, most of these tiny images are being found in the back of the magazine - where the women are being reviewed. If I were to do more work on this, I would examine this form of presence or lack of it.

CIRCA 58 (cover), 1991; cover image: Alice Maher: Cell,1991

One figure that is of great interest is that the percentage of women writing has always exceeded the percentage of women artists being written about - even now that 55% of review writers are women, only 39% of the dedicated reviews or solo exhibitions reviewed are of work by women. (See Figures 5 and 6.) Similar discrepancies exist in the other categories. What are we to make of this? It suggests that men are far more likely to write about other men, and women more likely to write about both men and women - or that women are more likely to write about men than men are to write about women - contrary to the popular prejudice that women always go on about women. This is something that the critic Lucy Lippard famously did for about 15 years: after having gained a reputation as a supporter and critic of minimalist art, she noted the disparity in coverage, and that many excellent women artists were not getting their work reviewed. Taking a leaf out of the book of the male critics around her, she concentrated upon art by artists of her own sex. There is a balance to be struck in any magazine - between the influence of the editor and the influence of the writers. In my experience as the editor of a magazine for two years, the editor will have most influence over such matters as the image on the cover, the subject of features (including such things as the artists projects), and the selection of the writers. Writers can of course suggest features. The reviewers have the most leeway - and it is interesting to note the number of women being reviewed. Fine Art courses have been producing over 50% women for decades. Not only are they out there as artists, but they also graduate with writing skills and observations to make on the work of other artists. They should be getting their work reviewed; they should be featured; they should be also writing features and reviews. I would ask all the women who think that feminism is no longer an live issue, or that equality of opportunity exists, to study the chart and consider: who will be writing about your work during the next 10 or 20 years? To those who work on magazines such as CIRCA, before you get defensive, I do of course acknowledge that a magazine is only one section of the artworld. However, these component parts exist in a symbiotic relationship: one component shifts or changes, and sooner or later, other parts have to shift and change.

Figure 5: Percentage of CIRCA feature writers, review writers, columnists, and writers overall who are women, broken down by magazine issue number.

Figure 6: Absolute number of men and women feature writers, review writers, columnists, and writers overall in CIRCA, broken down by magazine issue number.

If there is a slightly depressed tone about this analysis, it is because I find the results depressing: I had expected better. When I lived in London in the early 1980s, CIRCA was one of the magazines that anyone who was interested in the politics of art had to read. It was one of the things that brought me to Ireland to research Irish women artists in particular, and I was amazed and delighted at the amount of work being produced by women - and not only by women recently out of college, but women who were mature artists, who had stuck at it for a good number of years and were producing some excellent work. Many of them are still there. So where are the in-depth articles on that broad generation, including such as Pauline Cummins, Dorothy Cross, and Louise Walsh? Or their sisters across the water, like Anne Tallentire or Fran Hegarty? Or the following generation - and to mention only three in Belfast, Mary McIntyre, Moira McIver, and Sandra Johnston - all of whom are exhibiting internationally with work that is totally rooted in this place. But at this point it is probably even better to hand over to a younger generation myself. Last June I received an e-mail from Suzanna Chan, sometime contributor to CIRCA, and a brilliant critic and theorist. Her message summed up all the reasons for optimism: her e-mail spoke with verve and excitement of the diversity and depth of work by Irish women and women in Ireland. She named: Susan MacWilliam, Aisling O'Beirn, Heather Allen, Ursula Burke, Frances Hegarty, Louise Walsh, Laura Gannon, Angela Darby, Moira McIver, Mary McIntyre, Susan Philipsz, Caroline McCarthy, Anne Tallentire, Alanna O'Kelly, Gwen O'Dowd, Jill Dennis, Clare Langan, Pauline Cummins, Mo White, Dorothy Cross, Eilís O'Connell, Vivienne Roche, Maud Cotter, Barbara Freeman, Mary Fitzgerald, Cecily Brennan, Jacintha Feeney, Sarah Iremonger, Fionnuala Ní Chiosáin, Alice Maher, Daphne Wright, Finola Jones. Suzanna's e-mail ended: