The group wants to “empower women so they don’t feel alone against abuse. Something that we have already achieved is that every day a woman is waking up and realizing she is being abused. Many of them are adopting a fighting spirit because now they are not alone.” Blas says that while the group does not have a very formal structure it is already beginning to have an impact. The group wants to “empower women so they don’t feel alone against abuse. The fact we exist is already instilling fear in those who have something to hide."

“The typical ‘we don’t judge, we don’t endorse, we just put it up for people to experience and decide’ falls very flat in this political and cultural moment,” said James Rondeau, the president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, which has Close works in its collection. “We must be keenly aware of the responsibility and consequences of our decisions within this context.”

Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 economic reform and modernization plan says women are a "great asset" and vows to "develop their talents, invest in their productive capabilities and enable them to strengthen their future and contribute to the development of our society and economy."

The 2017 study “Gender Equality Policy in the Arts, Culture and Media: Comparative Perspectives”, supported by the German government’s commissioner for culture and media and under the academic direction of Helmut K. Anheier, compared a 2016 study of the German cultural field with five of its European Union members: France, Italy, Sweden, Poland, and the UK. Researchers found that, while women participate almost equally in the cultural sector in Germany (48 percent, an above-average percentage as compared to the other EU countries), the pay gap in Germany remains the widest by a long shot, figuring at a staggering 29.8 percent, compared to the 19.4 percent average for the others.

Martha Kennedy, curator of popular and applied graphic arts at the Library of Congress, centered the exhibit around two themes: She wanted to explore “how imagery of women and gender relations has changed over time” and “how broadening of subject matter happens over time and in different art forms.” Ultimately, the goal, Kennedy says, is to “foster a sense of shared history among female artists, inspire younger generations entering these specialties and spur further research in the library’s collections.”

Kevin Brennan, the shadow arts minister, said the situation was “not good enough” and called for a change in policy. “Only about a quarter of the work acquired by the government art collection in recent years is by women,” he said. “Female artists are at least as talented as their male counterparts and the government should be setting an example by getting rid of the institutionalised bias in their acquisitions policy.”

History is full of famous artist couples who inspired one another and fed each others’ creativity, whose passionate affairs helped push them to their artistic limits. But as important as they were to one another, their importance as gauged by the art market is often deeply asymmetrical, with male artists frequently outperforming their female partners at auction, often by orders of magnitude.

"Charles understood that Ray was an equal partner in their creations, and he was always eager to acknowledge her integral role. “Anything I can do, Ray can do better,” he said. But the wider world was slow to recognise her talents. This was the era of Mad Men, when even the most gifted women were often regarded as mere wives or secretaries. Ray was frequently forgotten, or dismissed as her husband’s little helpmate."

Regarding her gender, Ms. Jatta said she “didn’t realize what it meant until I started the job. Whenever I attended conferences or public events, so many women would come up to me, saying: ‘We are proud, and you are also, in some way, representing us.’

2017 may have been the year of feminism, but next year is shaping up to be a glorious year of female magnificence. Because the London Underground is going to be celebrating female artists all year, with a programme of works by women. The programme marks 100 years since women were granted suffrage. And it also forms part of Sadiq Khan’s gender equality campaign, #BehindEveryGreatCity, which hopes to celebrate the capital’s role in securing votes for women and looks to increasing gender equality in 2018.

Schmidt says once he got to the Uffizi, he discovered “that we are the museum with the largest collection of works of arts by women before the 19th century.” Schmidt says he set to work getting as many of these paintings out of storage as possible, including a large collection of self-portraits by women. This year the Uffizi also held the first in what will be a series of annual exhibitions devoted to women artists of the past. The event will open every year on March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day.

The Monir Museum located in Negarestan Garden, a former palace in Tehran, is the first museum in Iran to be devoted to a female artist, reports Tim Cornwell at the Art Newspaper. The museum, which is run by the University of Tehran, includes 50 works from the artist. Farmanfarmaian, who has had a complicated relationship with the politics of her native land but a deep love for its culture, says she sees the museum as her final legacy in an interview with Cornwell. “I can leave this country with a representation of my life’s work,” she says. “My love for my culture is in everything I create.” Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/iran-opens-first-museum-honoring-female-artist-180967549/#yxGuCzbHVfDJo3ub.99 Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter