24 November 2024
Dear Agony Aunt
Here we are speeding towards a (sort of) post pandemic Christmas. The decorations are up and Jingle Bells peels out merrily on high from shopping malls. I don’t want to be a grouch but I have been festering over the question of why Santa Claus, the giver of presents and joy, is always a man? The reindeer sleigh team led by Rudolf is all male (bar one – Vixen), and even the elves that make all the presents are male. I bet Ms Claus has quite a substantial input into the design of all those gifts for the little ones, but does she get any credit? NO! Same holds for me. All my life as an artist I have struggled against the hierarchy of greater value attributed to the creative work of male artists. So that being said, I would like to hear your views on the fact that creative enterprises like the fun bits of Christmas are still conceptualised as a largely male domain.
Tinkerbell
Forest Lodge

Dear Tinkerbell
Yeah I hear you. I guess where tradition is concerned, entrenched gender values and imagery are hard to shift, though in our household one Xmas eve, confusion was caused because it was Ms Claus who was sprung by the kids at midnight, sipping the whisky and scoffing the mince pies that had been left out for Santa.
In my Google search of the Santa story, I did come across the theory that actually in winter, male reindeer lose their antlers so the whole sleigh team must actually be female! There is some ambivalence around the elves. According to Wikipedia during the Old English period there were female elves but they had a different name. By the Middle English period, the word ‘elf’ was used for both males and females. However, it’s true that illustrations of the Christmas elves make them look distinctly masculine. So genders in the Christmas scenario are perhaps open to debate. I notice you don’t reference the Nativity where, though the cast of characters is almost all male, Mary plays a significant role as the mother.
If we shift our gaze to the real issue in your letter which is the gender politics of the artworld, we have to acknowledge that things are still far from equal – they are changing, but slowly. While the case could probably be made across the whole arts field, the biases seem to be most problematic in the visual arts. A great source of Australian statistical data in this area is the Countess Report which has tracked how things have changed over the 16 year period from 2008 to the present. The first Countess Report revealed a serious imbalance of power. Despite the fact that 75% of art school graduates were female, men held more positions at senior levels, and were significantly better represented across the whole sector. However, there have been some positive changes with a marked improvement in the general consciousness around representation of women. Here’s a precis of Countess’s latest evidence:
* 71% of art school graduates are women;
* here was an increase in the representation of women artists of between 10-20% across artist run spaces, commercial galleries, contemporary art organisations, public galleries, major museums and university galleries;
state galleries and museums continue to significantly under-represent women in their collections and exhibitions;
* in state galleries and museums the representation of women decreased from 36.9% to 33.9% from 2016 to 2019;
* 52% of art prize winners were women, with the top ten prizes (in dollar value) being a 50/50 split.
So we win some, we lose some. This may not be of great comfort to you, but at least the conversation is live and the Countess Report does provide some tools to argue the case.As a role model I would point you to the major initiative taken recently at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) which has now positioned itself as part of a global movement to increase the representation and visibility of women artists. When Dr Nick Mitzevich took over as director in 2018, he quickly established ‘Know My Name’, “a national program of exhibitions, commissions, education programs, partnerships and creative collaborations … that celebrate the diversity and creativity of Australian women artists throughout history and to the present day”. The NGA acknowledged that in 2019 only 25% of its Australian art collection and 33% of its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art collection were by women artists. To make the change, the gallery established its Guiding Principles for Gender Equity and an Action Plan 2021- 26 which addressed collection development, programming and organisational structures.
So take heart Ms Santa. We know your name will gradually become better recognised. And we would assert that it’s possible there is gender diversity amongst the elves and at least half the sleigh reindeer are likely to be female: Donna, Dancer, Vixen and Blixen, soon to be led by Rudolpha.
signed
AGONY AUNT