Comments

1
Is the 17-7 including or excluding this year?
2
The 17-7 is fairly meaningless, for several reasons. First of all, if we assumed applicants were 50/50 men and women and all equally talented, 7/24 is not all that far from random chance (it's about 3%; not freakishly unusual). More importantly, as you point out earlier in the piece we don't have data on their applicant pool, let alone that part of their applicant pool who pass some low bar of plausibility.

This is an issue that is absolutely worth paying attention to, but you seem to be energetically pursuing this one organization that, critically doesn't seem to have a history of ignoring women when it awards prizes. 7/24 isn't great, and if I heard their applicant pool was 60% women or if I heard five years from now that the score was now 14/48 I'd be concerned. Pushing them to collect data that helps them become aware of possible bias seems like a good idea. But 7/24 isn't a crazy-low ratio, and it hardly seems like they've been bending over backwards to spurn women as prize recipients. Surely there are better targets out there?
3
Fox News would be proud to have this level of spin:
-For the Genius Awards, we do talk about demographics. The immediate panicky response to this assertion is usually, "But our first priority is quality!"

This response is revealing, in that it indicates that quality will have to be sacrificed if the artists are not white men.-

Actually, what it reveals is that there is no way for them to win.
*If they do not look at gender then they are sexist because they are not doing enough to promote women.
*Their statement of neutrality is actually code for "white men are superior"
*The majority of winners are women, but the organization is still sexist because there were fewer women finalists.

So if Artist Trust offered to try and make more women finalists, it would be proof that they are sexist because they don't think women are good enough to be finalists based on quality. Right?
4
re: -For the Genius Awards, we do talk about demographics. The immediate panicky response to this assertion is usually, "But our first priority is quality!"

This response is revealing, in that it indicates that quality will have to be sacrificed if the artists are not white men.-

have you considered taking an Introduction to Logic Course? that statement bears no indication of your inference.
5
In 2010, the ratio was 4 men, 3 women (6 awards, one finalist was Lead Pencil Studio).
6
what about separate awards for boys and girls?
7
This is a dumb crusade, but I hope you have "fun" fighting it. Keep on strugglin' sister.
8
If you find that you don't get a lot of women applicants for your arts awards, you might try seeking them out until the numbers balance. Or you could be a cynical dick and comment that change is impossible and undesirable and unfair. w/e
9
If Artist Trust doesn't track the demographics of applicants, it can't look at the implications of those numbers over time. We don't really have enough data here to draw conclusions about bias... and that's not acceptable. If fewer women or people of color are applying for awards, yes, it follows that proportionally fewer will likely receive them. However, we don't have to accept that's just "how the cookie crumbles." We can ask Artist Trust what steps they might take to broaden the applicant pool in future years.

They should also track the demographics of jury panels. When was the last time a panel was composed completely of ethnic minorities? Whites? All women? All men? Jurors are human beings and human beings have biases. A healthy mix of backgrounds, gender, age, and expertise is difficult but not impossible to achieve.
10
Yeah, fuck merit, we should hand out awards based on vagina-having.

*rolls eyes*
11
Have to ask:

How many of the applicants were nonwhite?

Are we completely redefining the word 'diversity' to mean 'women'? Because Washington state already has pressed nonwhite people out of colleges (the anti Affirmative Action law that prevents racial categorization bet kept gender) and employment (white women outside the 1% are doing best in this economy, black, latina and native men and women are doing the worst).
12
And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...
13
Artist Trust does have an award with a substantial financial component - the $10,000 Irving and Yvonne Twining Humber Award for Lifetime Achievement - conveyed annually "to a Washington State female visual artist, age 60 or over, who has dedicated 25 years or more of her life to creating art." Applications available at the end of this month.
14
I used to work at Artist Trust, and I don't think the finalists for a single award in a single year represents significant quantifiable gender bias on their part. Looking at the 110 current 2012-13 award recipients, in all categories listed on their web site, at least 67 are female, or 61%. For the 2012 Grants for Artist Projects, 39 out of 62 awards went to women, or 63%. I think Artist Trust conduct panels with integrity, and consequently the selections have integrity, even in a fluke year. As for your second point, I think discomfort discussing sensitive demographic information with a reporter is understandable and human. I can't blame anyone there for not being in a hurry to talk about it with you.

If any women artists are looking for advice, I have a little. I believe some Artist Trust panels, the ones administering state funds, are open to the public. Observing a panel in action is a good way to understand how diversity is dealt with, as well as the applications as a whole. It's a good perspective to have when preparing one's own application. Even better, there may be opportunities to serve on a funding panel. Finally, artists can contact program staff directly, at a workshop, by email, or in the office, to discuss their application, which is something they should probably do for any funding they apply for anyway.
15
Thank you, Jen Graves.
16
I started writing this comment with several not-so-nice statements about Ms. Graves' ability to report, use statistics, understand why circular logic is bad, etc. But that doesn't elevate the discussion any. However, it is apparent from her two blog rants against Artist Trust that she is neither interested in: 1) getting facts correct; or 2) advancing the conversation beyond petty name-calling and ax-grinding with a well-liked arts organization. Really, she should be ashamed. The Slog is not a bully pulpit Jen, it is sounding more and more like the whiny pulpit.

Readers: Don't rely on Jen for the full picture of the situation. Take it upon yourself look at the AT website where they list all their award winners. Scan the list and tell me if there is a problematic disparity between the gender of their winners? http://artisttrust.org/index.php/award-w…

Jen: You're cherry-picking numbers from both Artist Trust and the Genius Award winner stats. In the case of AT, you are only citing numbers from the Arts Innovator Awards, not their four other grants. And when the results (4 out of 6 winners being women) didn't suit your whiny narrative, you expanded that to include the gender of the nominees.

Secondly, when I previously called out the Genius Award winners over its own history, you replied at how happy you were to discuss that... but this time you only cited the visual arts winners. Again, cherry-picking a sub-field out from the larger pool of available data.

Why do I have a problem with this? Well, it's because apples are not oranges, and m'dear you are trying to conflate the two. The Arts Innovator Awards (like all Artist Trust grants) are open to all fields of artistic endeavor from Washington residents. These include film, visual art, choreography, etc. You chose to only include visual arts winners from the Genius Awards when making your comparisons. Why not include all individual Genius Awards in the "arts" categories? I'm sure it's because the numbers don't hold up your argument about how horrible AT's panel/nomination process is.

The Genius Award numbers show poor gender equity when taken as a whole. Hell, even if we use your logic and look only at the visual arts category, it still doesn't look so great. Let's score it again though, using all the data (not omitting data points like you did with Lead Pencil; and I wonder what you did with SBC?). From 2003 to 2012, and giving the winners their due, i.e., SBC = 3 males, Lead pencil = 1 male and 1 female -- tally that up appropriately and it's 8 men to 5 women or 62% male and 38% female award winners (I didn't include 2013, because you started this rant before the winners were announced). Not very good numbers.

You're mistaken Jen, if you think you're going to pull the wool over everyone's eyes and convince us that you're advancing a gender disparity question or conversation with this storyline. It appears to me that you're just grinding an axe or are mistaking probability with conspiracy. Please, as I challenged you last week: Air your beef honestly. State the full facts. You've got the pulpit to do it. Meanwhile, we'll look elsewhere for reporting and thoughtful commentary.

(I mean really, while I'm writing this I have to look at soft porn Lustlab ads from your venerable organization. Kind of ironic given the gender inequality topic…)

Peace be with you.
17
We appreciate the thoughtful responses expressed here on the subject of diversity and equity in grant panel processes. Artist Trust is happy to participate in discussions on this important topic; however, we feel that the information we gave to The Stranger has not been accurately represented. In our open application process, we do not collect demographic information about applicants’ gender. Applications are and should remain confidential.

The fact that there have been more female grant recipients for our $25,000 Arts Innovator Award than male recipients (4 out of 6) in the four years we have administered this grant, despite a larger number of male finalists, certainly suggests that the process has not unduly disadvantaged female artists.

Artist Trust stands behind our panel process, and our concern for equity in our granting programs. We make a practice of selecting qualified panelists with diverse backgrounds. We then trust our panelists to make complex decisions, and they take their assignments seriously. We look forward to telling you about our panel process and our work on the issues of equity and diversity. Please feel free to contact us directly.

Lila Hurwitz, Associate Director
Artist Trust
www.artisttrust.org
18
Artist Trust has had Latina award winners whereas no Latina has ever won a Neddy or Betty Bowen.
19
Lila: "however, we feel that the information we gave to The Stranger has not been accurately represented. In our open application process, we do not collect demographic information about applicants’ gender. Applications are and should remain confidential."

What I wrote: "Rankin agreed in principle, and said these historical demographics have caused a change at Artist Trust in recent years. Artist Trust has begun to collect demographic data in the last few years, she added.

'We have started to try to think about issues of [demographic] diversity,' Rankin continued. 'We have changed, and are trying to keep more [information] about that. We've always simply asked artists to submit their applications and we've not historically, until the past few years, asked artists to submit a gender in their application.'

This morning, Hurwitz said Rankin had gotten that wrong, and that the Arts Innovator Award applications do not collect gender data. Hurwitz said she was too busy to continue the conversation today."

Can you please be more specific about my misrepresentation?

From an email you sent me on September 25: "We’re pulling together the 2013 applicants’ gender info but it likely won’t be ready until tomorrow."

From an email you sent me on October 1: "Margit unfortunately was mistaken when she spoke with you last week (I blame her jet lag; it wasn’t anything more nefarious than that); she thought we collected applicants’ gender, when we don’t. Hard to know absolutely everything when you’re the ED. I apologize on her behalf for that mistake."

Help?? I try to understand what comes out of your offices, and I truly struggle. I think I characterized pretty fairly and accurately here.

Please wait...

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