Gender Perspective and Museums: Gender as a Tool in the Interpretation of Collections

Abstract

This article addresses the use of the concept of gender in the analysis and interpretation of collections as a strategy for the inclusion of gender perspective in museums. Firstly, the two types of strategies for including a gender approach in museums, quantitative and qualitative, are presented. Both are necessary, but it is the qualitative strategies that allow the questioning the discourse and practices of a museum, made possible by feminist criticism and queer theory. At the heart of this criticism is the concept of gender. After clarifying this concept as a cultural construction, how gender can be used as a tool in analysing the interpretation of collections is shown. This premise is illustrated by presenting two projects carried out at the National Museum of Ceramics and Decorative Arts González Martí in Valencia, Spain: the thematic tours, ‘A Question of Gender’, and the virtual tours, ‘Rereadings. Museum Itineraries from a Gender Perspective’.