Against a background of women’s widespread under-representation at executive level, publicly subsidised arts organisations in the UK have collectively, as a sector, appointed equal numbers of women and men at executive level. This thesis uses qualitative, semi structured interviews with 63 executives, chairs and headhunters from across the sector to bring a deeper understanding of the factors at play in this unusual gender parity.

It is argued that the UK publicly subsidised arts sector’s atypically non-homophilous instrumental networks include effective mentoring between men and women, and which feed into genuinely formal recruitment and selection methods alongside open advertising and selection decisions based on agreed criteria, contribute to this parity. At the same time, increasingly widespread flexible working practices include co-executive positions and working patterns that can accommodate executive responsibilities alongside childcare and other caring activities, the majority of which are still undertaken by women. These factors combined seem to provide the conditions that have enabled this sector to achieve gender parity at executive level sooner than other sectors, particularly those in which homophilous networks play a central role in discrete, unadvertised executive appointments in ways that disadvantage women. However, the UK publicly subsidised arts sector’s relatively low executive pay levels, and its remaining intersectional inequalities of gender, race and class, are noted as important context to this gender parity since there is some indication that the gender pay gap persists, and the advantage extended to white, middle-class women has not yet been extended to all women.

By focussing on arts organisations, this thesis provides a unique empirical contribution to studies of executive gender inequality. By uncovering a link between inter-organisational collaboration, and openness towards sexuality which allow for men and women to mix professionally without judgment, it also expands on current theories about how homophilous and non-homophilous networks can be formed.