Unsung Heroes
Susana Weymouth of Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture & the Arts
WIN WOLLOFF
PEZZ PHOTO
52 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE | MARCH/APRIL 2020
The impressive, diverse, fast growing and lively arts and
cultural landscape is not just entertainment – it is big business
– pumping millions of dollars into our economy, creating jobs,
attracting and retaining companies, and a talented workforce.
And so on many different levels, our area’s future rests with
a thriving business, arts and cultural eco-system.
When you think of the Tampa Bay area in this context
of growth and success, women in the arts is probably not
the first thing that comes to mind. Indeed, the national
characterization of the role of women in the arts is one of
limited participation, and limited reward. This is borne out
with the disparity in gender equity in pay, since women
visual artists, on average, earn 74¢ for every $1 made by
male artists, and it gets worse for women artists 55+, who
earn only 66¢ for each $1 earned by men, according to the
National Endowment for the Arts; in exhibitions (only 14%
of exhibitions at 26 prominent U.S. museums over the past
decade were of work by female artists - artnetNews), and in
sales. In January, NPR Morning Edition looked at millions of
records from auction sales, and found out that, “on average,
work by women artists sells for 40% less than work by male
Cynthia Gandee Zinober
of Henry B. Plant Museum in Tampa