CCB Magazine

The whole culture industry wants to go green and everyone is talking about sustainability. But are we also talking about equal pay for men and women? Far too little. A plea for sustainable gender justice in culture.
 

Text Nicola Bramkamp 

When heads of state and government adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, there was great jubilation. Progress at last. Finally more sustainability. Something is happening. The 17 goals for sustainability developed there were celebrated as a brilliant roadmap for a fairer world. Goal number five even reads: gender justice. As artistic director of the Art meets Science initiative Save the World, I have been fighting for sustainable transformation in culture since 2014. The empowerment and participation of women and girls in shaping our world is a fundamental prerequisite for ending poverty, inequality and violence, and urgently needed for a peaceful, just and sustainable world. It also has a leverage effect on economic growth and development and is not only just, but is also indispensable in economic and social terms.

When I became acting director at the Theater Bonn at the age of 35, I could hardly believe what I saw when I looked at the salary lists: women were basically paid less than men at my new place of work. The glaring gender pay gap affected both permanent employees and freelance artists. A 40-year-old actress earned almost 1,000 euros per month less than her male colleague of the same age - even though she did the same work. I started asking around. A similar picture emerged at other theaters. When the study ’Women in Culture and Media’ by the German Cultural Council appeared in 2014, a murmur went through the cultural landscape; a feeling became a number. According to the study, women in acting earn 42 percent less than their male colleagues. In a European comparison, we in the cultural sector bring up the rear in terms of the gender pension gap. These are the findings of the 2017 report ’Gender Equality Policy in the Arts, Culture and Media.’ How can it be that in Germany, with our well-funded cultural infrastructure, there are such glaring inequities in gender equality? The reasons are many. Although slightly more than half of the students in directing, acting, singing, dramaturgy, etc. at artistic universities are women, only 22 percent end up in management positions. Don't the 78 percent of male colleagues in management positions notice that something is amiss here?

As a theater director, I have tried to eliminate the gender pay gap as far as possible, but with the consequence that I was able to fill one less position. This is also the experience of my colleagues in Mannheim, Oberhausen and Hanover, who have also introduced almost equal pay there.

Is theater folklore to blame? Are prejudices, stereotypical gender clichés, the so-called "unconscious bias" preventing the pay gap from being overcome? Stage designers, for example, still earn considerably more than costume designers. Why is that? Is scenography, traditionally masculine and technical, per se more socially valuable than dealing with costumes and dresses? There is not a single reasonable explanation for this discrepancy in salaries between the different branches of scenography. Or does it just come down to the oft-cited cliché that women are simply worse negotiators?

Since 2018, #MeToo, i.e. the rebellion against structural abuse of power in the cultural industry, has been a big topic. In a patriarchal system based on fear, dependencies, and precarious employment, it is difficult for us to defend ourselves individually against discrimination. Many artists - especially after the pandemic - are happy to be able to work at all. In this situation, a courageous rebellion against inequality is often damaging to one's reputation. The study ’Power and Structure in the Theater’ and the abuse of power scandals of recent years have shown this impressively. Things cannot remain as they are. Action is needed now. Because action is like intention, only more blatant. In 2018, I co-founded the conference Burning Issues - Performing Arts & Equality with Lisa Jopt, the current president of the Cooperative of German Stage Owners and founder of the ensemble network. Together with many other initiatives such as Pro Quote Bühne, Diversity Arts Culture, the ensemble-netzwerk and the German Stage Association, we are committed to a more equitable theater landscape. In May 2022, we will again be cooperating with the renowned Berlin Theatertreffen. Yvonne Büdenhölzer, the festival's director, has sent an important signal for more justice in the performing arts by introducing the quota.

So the analysis phase is now over, the facts are on the table. Now it is up to us to shape a sustainable society that functions in a socially, ecologically and economically just way. Culture creates the framework in which sustainable action can develop. After all, questioning and breaking up old thought patterns is our core business. If we put what we preach on stage into practice behind the scenes, we will come a big step closer to this utopia.

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