Exchange, Deception and Disillusionment — Some Considerations on Women in the Arts and Media in Austria

Starting from the widespread idea of symmetric and dualistic gender patterns, the intention of the article is to show that the seemingly dualistic structure of gender characters is asymmetric. The concept of (a)symmetry draws on the traditional gender concept that has been hollowed out by post-modern thinking. But on the everyday level of labour markets this scheme is still powerful. Empirical evidence taken from an EU-wide report on the situation of “Women in Arts and Media Professions” will support this approach. The data assembled for this case study shows that the spaces that are attributed to men and women are highly asymmetric.