New study suggests Hollywood women in power hire more women than men.
Women in Hollywood executive positions, or positions of power, hire more women than men in the same positions. Sounds like common sense but, now we have the quantitative data to prove it. According to a new report from San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television in Film, women in Hollywood with positions of power hire more women than men.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, TV shows run by at least one woman have an average of 50 percent women on its writing teams, compared to 15 percent of shows run by men exclusively.
In fact:
“The findings suggest that creators and executive producers play an instrumental role in shifting the gender dynamics for both on-screen characters and other individuals working in powerful behind-the-scenes roles,” said Dr. Martha Lauzen, executive director of the center and author of the study.
In 2014-15, females accounted for 42 percent of all speaking characters and 27 percent of creators, executive producers, producers, directors, writers, editors, and directors of photography working on prime-time broadcast programs. Lauzen said that when compared with figures from recent years, these percentages reveal that women’s forward progress in television has stalled. “There is a perception gap between how people think women are faring in television, both on screen and behind the scenes, and their actual employment. We are no longer experiencing the incremental growth we saw in the late 1990s and 2000s.”
Women are not only discriminated against and marginalized in 2015, but Hollywood is actually making backwards progress decreasing the number of positions for women in Hollywood.
