ABSTRACT
A reader browsing through standard art history texts written hefore the late 1980s would have to conclude there were few-if any-women artists in 5,000 years of human history. As Dickinson (1995) notes Gardner's Art Through the Ages (puhlished in 1975) mentioned 5,000 men and four women; Janson's History of Art (puhlished in 1985) included 3,000 male artists and no female artists. This lack of success for women in the field cannot convincingly he explained hy a gendered difference in ahility. Rather, sociocultural forces have impeded women artists' development and lowered their status (Nochlin, 1971).
