Enduring inequalities: Fifty years of gender equality talk in the media and cultural industries

Abstract

This article provides a critical overview of gender equality talk within the media, arts and cultural industries, focusing on a case study of Australian cultural policy discourse from the 1970s to 2020s. It aims to expand on existing understandings of postfeminism and popular feminism by exploring how these sensibilities have been taken up and expressed within arts and cultural policy discourse. How has the problem of the cultural gender gap previously been understood? And how has that changed in light of increased public attention to feminist concerns? While there are important differences across the decades there are also recurring notions of pragmatism, self-empowerment, resilience, vigilance and trickle-down logics – which cultivate a sense of movement without progress. By looking at policy discourses and gender equality talk through a longer lens, considering situations of feminist visibility and invisibility, acceptance and repudiation, and inequalities that are speakable and unspeakable, we see how inequalities in the creative and cultural industries come to be both enduring and endurable.