The Art of Equity

I attended a series of seminars last year, via work, aimed at accelerating female talent in the sector I am a part of. You won’t be surprised to learn it is a male dominated industry, with very few women in the most senior of roles. The most recent diversity date published by the company demonstrated that women held the majority of entry level, or next entry level roles and were more likely to have either flexible working arrangements or part-time hours. Whereas the higher you go in the organisation, the greater the proportion of men, and the greater the proportion working core, full-time hours. Redressing that balance is complex, and inextricably linked to the macro-environment my employer exists within, but one attempt is to run these seminars, forming cohorts of ambitious and talented women, and working on things like networking, ambition and the education of male colleagues. I was asked to invite a male colleague to one of these seminars, where they would be asked to examine their experience of headwinds and tailwinds. For those not familiar with this terminology, a headwind is something you fly into, that slows down your progress. A tailwind is something pushing you along and accelerating you. I’ve been lucky to have had favourable tailwinds on flights that get you to your destination airport ahead of schedule, and feeling like you’ve somehow defeated time and the universe in the process.

As each woman on the course brought along their own guest, we ended up with a rather large collection of attendees, and were able to break off into virtual mini-groups, via the wonders of WebEx technology, and rotate discussions. Something I observed with every interaction was that when asked about what headwinds and tailwinds each male attendee had experienced in their career, every single one shrugged and stated they really didn’t think they’d had any. Every female attendee on the course was able to talk about headwinds such as maternity leave, difficulties in obtaining promotions and barefaced workplace sexism. It struck me that it only takes the absence of a headwind, slowly you down, to feel the acceleration of your tailwinds is “normal” speed. Every single male colleague on that seminar had experienced no/so little resistance (certainly due to their gender, at least) that they had lost the sensation of speed that being male afforded them. By and large they were mostly white men too. While my cohort of female colleagues was reasonably diverse in terms of ethnicity, sexuality and age, when asked to seek out male colleagues around us, the pond is somewhat understocked with ethnically diverse men too.

The reason I talk about these headwinds and tailwinds is because it is very difficult to personally identify things that have benefitted you, if you have not experienced obstruction. As a result, those most likely to have benefitted from the privileges of their gender, race, age, sexuality etc. are the least likely to recognise this, as there is nothing to compare their experience to, directly. I wanted to really examine myself and my tailwinds, because, by their very nature are metaphorically behind me and hard to see. I am white, and I am female, and while I grew up in poverty, have been able to reach a stage in my life where I am financially comfortable. I am educated to degree level, and am fortunate to have paid off student debt from the first degree, and have my second entirely funded by my employer. I have time and money to access educational materials, and can read for pleasure. I have access to electricity, internet, good food and I have leisure time. So on the scale of factors likely to carry headwinds, I am reasonably well off. I am also keenly aware of this and try to consider and work on the intersectional aspects of feminism, and appreciate I am flying into a much weaker wind than most women around me.

As a result of some of the above privileges I have (because they are privileges, while I work hard, I am acutely aware most of these things are often down to pure chance/luck) I am fortunate enough to have been able to re-pursue a hobby of mine, abandoned since my late-teens. That hobby is art, specifically oil painting. I joined a local art college recently, in an attempt to reinvest in activities I enjoy, that provide some escapism from work, the world and my problems. The course is run by a very approachable and well-educated woman, in an affluent area of the city I live in. She has a degree in fine art, and has spent years teaching students, of all ages about both the theory and practice of art. I was added to the groups WhatsApp of this class before I met a single person in person, and I had a very enjoyable evening, clicking on the various profile pictures of those in the group to see if they looked like the sort of person I’d expect to be in a day time oil painting class. This was an absolute lesson in stereotypes and my own conscious and unconscious bias. The course wasn’t cheap, art can be inaccessible to some, and given it was a weekday, day time course, I expected a certain “arty”, older, hand-knitted smock wearing crowd, and I was largely correct.

I arrived at my first class, on the hottest day of the year, sweating in an apron and unapologetically unequipped with any of the materials needed. As always, I was the first one there (I always leave far too much time to park, given my pessimistic view of city centre parking) and I’d settled at the back of the room (beautifully socially distanced) and hidden behind my borrowed easel, paper, palette knife and piles of newspaper, to watch my fellow students arrive. We were a small bunch, and I was crossing off items on my art-class bingo sheet – harem pants, check. Older lady, with a stick and a bag with Yorkshire terriers on, check. Middle-aged man who keeps bees, carries a thermos and is passionately vegan, check. I’m in no position to criticise, as I sat there with my electric blue hair, pierced nose, large tattoos, and canvas shopping bag, I was as much a cliché as anyone else shuffling into the room that day. As the lovely lady in the hareem pants was showing me how to lay out my palette of colours ready for mixing, we had a late arrival to the class, a girl called Randeep, who had been on the course since the start, but had had trouble parking today (I reckon I may have taken her space as it was my first week on the course and I’d veered into a space on a busy main road as soon as I saw it). She was very quiet, and took the last table next to me. I was grinning like a lunatic as I was here both to learn about oil painting, and to make friends. I waved at her as she sat down, and proffered some newspaper (you wipe your palette knife down on paper before you clean it) as I could see she’d not got any, and introduced myself.

We then set about the first part of the lesson, looking at art theory, and observing some techniques in works of art and discussing how they are applied. We’d looked at a couple of Hopper pieces and there was a lively debate around if the class liked his style or not, and how he created an ominous sense of unease in his pictures with clever colour and perspective techniques. I stayed quiet as although I recognised one of his paintings, I couldn’t have named the artist before that day, and I didn’t feel I had an opinion. Randeep was quiet too, I assumed she was preoccupied with mixing her palette as she was a little late, and thought nothing of it.

Because she was sat beside me, and because as a complete newbie to the class I had to re-learn the colour wheel on my own, I was able to hear her when she did speak to the teacher. She had asked for an explanation of the term tone. I could tell from her accent that she was not speaking in her first language, and by virtue of the fact these classes were private, she was here for the same reason I was, as a hobby. I listened to the teacher, somewhat put out at trying to explain the concept of tone to someone and realised she was not doing a good job. She was not being unkind deliberately, but you could tell she was used to teaching art to people who spoke English as their first language, and instantly understood words like muted, tonal and atmospheric. It’s actually really difficult to explain the idea of tone in art when you really think about it, especially if you cannot rely on shared educational experiences and cultural ideas that would normally illustrate the point. I was filled with such respect and admiration for Randeep in that moment. I tried to imagine taking any class in a language that was not my native tongue and it seems impossible. And yet, here she was, of her own free will, on a private course, full of questions and learning twice the things I was that day. I really hope I don’t come across as patronising here, I really don’t mean to be. I was confronted with a tailwind I didn’t even know was pushing me along in this class, and she’d already had more classes than me. She asked so many questions, that I would never had needed to ask, and I really felt the inequity in the students that day. There was me, worrying that I didn’t have an opinion on Hopper, because my poor upbringing never budgeted for visits to art galleries, or books on the various movements of artists throughout the last 2000 years or so, and here is a girl who is overcoming a language barrier to just get to where I was at 10 years old.

It made me really think about who art is accessible to, and even who could and can be an artist. Much like I needed disposable income, education and access to certain privileges to attend this art class, painters of history were largely white men, with means enough to paint as a job/buy materials, and to have some credibility. I bought a history of art encyclopedia and watched as the female painters and more impressionist and abstract styles only emerged at the back of the book. This included the depiction of women throughout, usually religious in nature, or painted nude, for the male gaze, until female artists and ethnically diverse artists began to paint realistic, working women and dark skin on those canvases. I realised, that even with headwinds, my ability to access art has been privileged and I never even noticed. However they were clothed, I could see women that looked like me in those frames, I lived in a country as a student where I could enter art galleries for free, I had a linguistic advantage when it came to thinking about this art and considering the theories behind it.

I was subject to an advantage I had taken for granted, and Randeep confronted me with that, just by asking questions within earshot. This is why I feel it is so important to expose oneself to diverse people and perspectives, it actually teaches you far more about yourself, than it does about art.