SnapShots Exhibit
Moves to Germantown Performing Arts Center

March 6 - April 9, 2009    

The Memphis community will have another opportunity to experience a unique collection of photographs taken by women about women.

"SnapShots: Memphis Women at Work" will be on display in the visual arts gallery of the Germantown Performing Arts Center from March 6 through April 9, 2009.

This special collection was created to celebrate 25 years of research on issues of gender, race, class, and social inequality by the Center for Research on Women (CROW) at the University of Memphis.  

In the spring of 2007, the Center invited 25 of Memphis’ most influential women to take photographs of a “woman at work.”  Each photographer selected her own subject, and these photos, along with brief statements about each choice, were shown in a free public exhibition at the University of Memphis Art Museum on November 10, 2007.  The exhibit then went on public display at the Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women during the month of December 2007.

CROW's History of Research on Women and Work

Over the past 25 years, The Center has sponsored many projects related to women and employment. From the 1984 project by then Director Elizabeth Higginbotham on Work and Survival for Black Women, to the definitive study in 1999 on a living wage in Memphis (CROW Affiliate Dr. David Ciscel), to a current study of job training programs for low-income women (CROW Affiliates Phyllis Betts and Jane Henrici with the Memphis Area Women’s Council), the Center has consistently invested in research concerning women, wages, and economic self-sufficiency.

Although women have made strides toward economic equality in the last twenty five years, economic self-sufficiency remains a critical concern.  According to the National Network for Women’s Employment, women continue to earn less than men and are nearly twice as likely to be poor than men. Women have made gains in professional jobs traditionally dominated by men, but have made relatively little progress in blue collar occupations. As a result, many women remain segregated in the lowest-paying jobs in our country.

Continued Commitment to Economic Justice for Women

The majority of U.S. families rely on women’s wages to make ends meet. Because women’s economic security is critical to the economic well being of our community and our nation, CROW pledges a continued commitment to research that fuels the fight for economic justice for women. 

The Center would like to thank the Guest Photographers, their Subjects, and the following sponsors for their generous support of the SnapShots exhibit:

Fish & Associates Financial Management, Inc.
Kathy Fish, President & CEO

Lisa Waddell Buser Photography
Toof Commercial Printing
Quick Change Artists
The Art Museum of the University of Memphis