I recently read some statistics concerning women in American academia. Despite the fact that women compose over half of the recipients of bachelor’s degrees in fields like chemistry and political science, in those fields they represent, respectively, 13.7 and 26.1 percent of all professors at top 100 departments. Similarly, women in my career field, law, make up only a small percentage of those in top positions.

While one might think that the dance world would be immune to sex discrimination since women are dancers in such strong numbers, as Heather Risely points out, that logic doesn’t hold up. Unfortunately, I don’t find this at all shocking.

One fascinating study found that auditioning blind (behind a screen that prevented judges from seeing the gender of the musician) increased by 50% a female musician’s chance of progressing beyond the preliminary rounds, making it several times more likely that she would ultimately be offered an orchestra position.

So, what can we do to keep women from being held back, besides forcing blindness? Catalyst determined that in the legal field a lack of mentoring opportunities and a lack of female role models plays a large part in the failure of women to advance. In order to overcome the problem of under-representation, I think it’s critical that those women in dance leadership roles reach out to other women who want to follow in their footsteps.
There’s definitely a disturbing disconnect if those holding the highest positions in the largest dance companies remain mostly men because that ratio doesn’t reflect the dance community as whole. I’m curious about what the men in these leadership roles could contribute to the discussion. Do they think women have the same prospects for advancement as artistic directors as men? Why or why not? Ms. Risely did not include the male perspective.

In New York City, disparity in funding support for men and women choreographers has been a hot topic for some time. From what I have read, the BIG bucks go to men and the smaller bucks to women. Perhaps this issue will come to life in Washington, DC with presenters and funding organizations.

Regarding leadership in funding and presenting in DC, I created this short and unverified list of producers/presenters(please forgive the errors, change happens fast):
-Dance Place, Executive Director, female; Programming/Development, female
- Wolftrap programming in dance – female
-Institute for the Arts, University of Maryland – female
-Metro DC Dance – female
-Lisner Auditorium, Executive Director, female; Publicity/programming director, male
-Kennedy Center for the Arts; Director is male; international programming, female
-Arlington County CUltural Affairs, Executive Director, female; Performing arts director, male
-GMU, Center for the Arts – male
-WPAS – Director and Emeritus Director – males
- Shakespeare (Put them in because they are programmning dance in the Harman space – executive director and programming director – male, male; programming, female
-Altas Theatre – Executive Director – male Administrator, male
-Warner Theatre – male
-Washington Institute for the Arts; male
-Strathmore Center for the Arts; male
–Washington Ballet – artistic director; executive director, female

Another important area, of course, are the development directors. I don’t know enough about that and the foundation directors to make a list (i.e. D.C. Commission for the Arts, male Executive Director and male programming director; Meyer Foundation, Female; Cafritz Foundation, female; Dance USA, female)

The article by Risley questioned the imbalance of organizations funding training programs based on race and ethnicity. That seems to be an important issue in Washington, DC.

Maida Withers