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Women's Employment in the Arts
Overview
Women are creating some of the most exciting and challenging art in the United States today. And yet, despite great strides in other fields and a few high-visibility success stories, women continue to face enormous employment discrimination in the arts and media.
WomenArts is dedicated to educating the public about the continuing problems of gender bias in the arts. Not only do women suffer by being shut out, but the culture as a whole is poorer when it is deprived of the vision and creativity of women artists.
We have listed some helpful studies and links to other organizations working in these areas below.
Women's Employment in Theatre
NYSCA Study on Women in Theatre
New York State Council on the Arts Theatre Program Report on the Status of Women: A Limited Engagement?
By Susan Jonas & Suzanne Bennett
The New York State Council on the Arts Theatre Program conducted a survey of the 2,000 plays being presented in the U.S. in 2001-2002, and found that only 17% had women writers and only 16% had women directors. Read More>>
Guerrilla Girls on Tour
www.guerrillagirlsontour.com
The Girlcott page at www.guerrillagirlsontour.com/girlcott.htm lists theatres that will not be producing a single play by women on their main stage spaces during 2008-09. The Good News page at http://www.guerrillagirlsontour.com/goodnews.htm lists theatres that have Main Stage seasons where 50% or more of the plays are by women.
Women's Employment in Film & Television
Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film
http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/
Martha M. Lauzen, Ph.D., a professor at San Diego State University, has established the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film which does annual studies on women's employment in film and televison. We have provided links to some of her studies below. Links to all of the center's research studies are available at:
http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/research.html
The Celluloid Ceiling
The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind the Scenes and On-Screen Employment of Women in the Top 250 Films of 2008.
By Martha M. Lauzen, Ph.D., San Diego State University
In 2008, women comprised 16% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films. This represents a decline of 3 percentage points from 2001 and an increase of 1 percentage point from 2007.
Women accounted for 9% of directors in 2008, an increase 3 percentage points from 2007. This figure represents no change from the percentage of women directing in 1998.
Boxed In
Boxed In: Women On Screen and Behind the Scenes in the 2008-2009 Prime-time Season
By Martha M. Lauzen, Ph.D., San Diego State University
The percentage of women working in powerful behind-the-scenes roles in prime-time programming airing on the five broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, NBC) remained relatively stable in the 2008-09 season when compared with prior seasons. Overall, women comprised 25% of all creators, executive producers, producers, directors, writers, editors, and directors of photography working on situation comedies, dramas, and reality programs.
Women writers and directors of photography experienced substantial increases this year. The percentage of women writers increased from 23% in the 2007-08 season to 29% in 2008-09. The percentage of women directors of photography increased from a meager 1% in 2007-08 to 4% in 2008-09.
Women At the Box Office (Ticket Sales of Films By & About Women)
Women At the Box Office
By Martha M. Lauzen, Ph.D., San Diego State University
This study examines the belief that films made by women or featuring female protagonists earn less at the box office than those made by men or featuring males. The major findings of the study include the following:
- When women and men filmmakers have similar budgets for their films, the resulting domestic, international, and opening weekend box office grosses - as well as DVD sales - are also similar. The sex of filmmakers does not determine box office grosses.
- When the size of the budget is held constant, films with female protagonists or prominent females in an ensemble cast generate similar box office grosses (domestic, international, opening weekend) and DVD sales as films with male protagonists. Films with larger budgets earn larger grosses, regardless of the sex of the protagonist.
Thumbs Down Report: The Representation of Women Film Critics in the
Top 100 U.S. Daily Newspapers
Thumbs Down Report
By Martha M. Lauzen, Ph.D., San Diego State University
Men write the overwhelming majority of film reviews in the nation’s top newspapers. In Fall 2007, men penned 70% and women 30% of all reviews. Furthermore, of the newspapers featuring film reviews, 47% had no reviews written by women critics, writers or freelancers. In contrast, only 12% had no reviews written by men critics, writers or freelancers.
In addition, men wrote significantly more reviews than women. Men wrote an average of 14 film reviews whereas women wrote an average of 9 film reviews during the study period.
The findings of this report suggest that film criticism in this country's newspapers is largely a male enterprise, echoing the predominance of men working on screen and behind the scenes in the film industry. In short, men dominate the reviewing process of films primarily made by men featuring mostly males intended for a largely male audience. The under-employment of women film reviewers, actors, and filmmakers perpetuates the nearly seamless dialogue among men in U.S. cinema.
New York Women in Film and Television
www.nywift.org/article.aspx?id=60
The "Status of Women in the Industry" section of the site includes an excellent assortment of studies and articles.
Movies Directed by Women
www.moviesbywomen.com
Information on historical women directors, statistics on women directors, and Director interviews. You can also sign up here to be placed on the First Weekender's Group mailing list and hear about films by women that are about to open. Supporting a film on its first weekend shows that films by women can have box-office clout.
Girls, Women + Media Project
www.mediaandwomen.org
Activist site with summaries of studies of bias in news media and coverage of women's sports, as well as studies of imagery of women in film and television.
Geena Davis Institute on Gender & Media
http://www.thegeenadavisinstitute.org/research.php
The Institute’s work is based on the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children's entertainment. Dr. Stacy Smith and her team at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication carried out 4 discrete studies, including one on children's television and three on film. The studies can be downloaded from their website.
Women's Employment in Classical Music
Kristina Kohler, Women's Philharmonic Executive Director
The quote below is from an interview in the August 7, 2003 issue of NYFA Current with Kristina Kohler, Executive Director of the now defunct Women’s Philharmonic.
The last sentence of the interview is no longer accurate, but it’s not far off. Marin Alsop became the first woman conductor of a major symphony in 2007 when she took the podium at the Baltimore Symphony (overcoming serious resistance from the male musicians).
"The American Symphony Orchestra League 2002/03 Repertoire Report shows that fewer than 1% of works programmed in the 2002/03 season represent works by women. Of the 484 composers programmed in the 2002/03 season by 104 significant League member orchestras, only 5% were women. Of the 104 world premieres listed in the report, only 10% represent works by women composers.
Commissioning of works by women composers has begun to pick up for some composers (i.e. Jennifer Higdon, Chen Yi, Augusta Read Thomas). However, women on the whole still lag far behind: Of the 85 total organizations applying on behalf of a composer to Meet the Composer's (MTC) commissioning grants in 2002, only 19% represented a woman composer. Of the 17 awarded Meet the Composer grants, 24% (4) went to a woman composer. Of the 44 winners of the Broadcast Music, Inc. Student Composer Awards for Classical Music over the past five years (1998-2002), again, only 5% (or two) have been women.
There are no women conductors/music directors employed by the largest 25 North American symphonies (according to budget size of orchestra), and women represent only 11% of all conducting positions in the nation."
International Alliance for Women in Music
www.iawm.org
Organization that celebrates women in music, with activist campaigns to increase women's employment, mostly in classical music.
Women's Employment in Dance
Dance Theatre Workshop notes that based on Apollinaire Scherr's November 4, 2001 New York Times article "Making a Career With One Eye on a Gender Gap": In 1976 Wendy Perron and Stephanie Woodard found that while women constituted the majority of choreographers, dancers administrators, teachers and students, men received a larger proportion of prizes and opportunities and that a quarter century later, these findings are still true. In 2000, of 18 modern-dance choreographers who received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, 13 were men. The men received a total of $200,000, with a typical grant of $10,000; the women received a total of $45,000, with a typical grant of $5,000."
Women's Employment in Publishing and the News Media
The Times is not a-changin'
www.wellesley.edu/womensreview/archive/2004/11/
highlt.html#caplan
A study by Paula Caplan and Mary Ann Palko proves what we've always suspected: women's voices are woefully underrepresented in the pages of the New York Times Book Review , the most powerful publication in the world of book publishing. In 53 weeks of the NYTBR in 2002-03, out of 807 books reviewed, only 28% were authored by women. Of the 775 reviews, only 34% were by women reviewers. Read the report, including excerpts of correspondence with the Book Review editors, on the site of the Women's Review of Books.
The Glass Ceiling in the Executive Suite:
www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/NewsDetails.aspx?myId=33
The 3rd Annual Annenberg Public Policy Center Analysis of Women Leaders in Communication Companies shows that women still comprise just 15% of executive leaders and just 12% of board members in top communications companies - numbers virtually unchanged from the previous year.
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