Gendered Entry, Recognition, and Depth: A Study of Acquisition Pathways at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Unraveling the gendered mechanisms behind museum acquisitions

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines whether museum acquisition processes differ by gender across three dimensions: entry pathway, timing of recognition, and depth of post-entry engagement. Analysing MoMA's permanent collection dataset through Tilly's (1998) theory of durable inequality, we find that women are underrepresented in donor gift acquisitions but overrepresented in fund-based acquisitions, with no difference in direct purchases. Works by women have substantially shorter collection lags, and conditional on entry, women are more likely to receive repeat acquisitions and longer acquisition spans. However, no gender differences emerge in acquisition volume or departmental breadth. The results suggest selective reinforcement rather than broad inclusion: institutions concentrate investment on a small pool of already-validated female artists. We contribute to DEI research by demonstrating that equality on one metric can mask skew on others, and recommend that museums disaggregate pathways, distinguish "more women" from "more of the same women," and commit to long-term collection-building.