At the BFI London Film Festival, Geena Davis presented some findings on gender equality in entertainment from her research institute, the Institute on Gender in Media. The research focused on gender inequality within children’s entertainment, and the findings were … well, less than stellar.
According to research, female characters are still incredibly outnumbered by male characters. What’s more, the representation that is present can be considered “harmful,” according to the Institute, and may send the wrong messages on gender to children.
Davis explained:
In family rated films, for every one speaking female character there were three male characters. The research also shows that when female characters do exist, they are very often stereotyped or hyper-sexualized. [Female characters in G-rated films] wore the same amount of revealing clothing as the female characters in R-rated movies.
She dug deeper, highlighting gender roles in films:
In family rated films, 81 percent of the jobs are held by male characters and the function of the female characters is very often to serve as eye-candy. And it’s really bad if you look at the professions. Women hold 21 percent of global political positions, but one of [the] studies showed that of 127 political characters, only 12 of them were female.
So in other words, no matter how limited the number of women CEOs and law partners and presidents are in the real world, there are far less on screen.
The exception to this, however? Forensic science. With the growing prevalence of female forensic scientists represented in shows like Bones, iZombie, or CSI, that field has seen a 75% growth in female representation. And sure, apparently over the past 20 years, things have gotten better. But the most staggering of statistics presented sums it all up. Davis said, “If we continue at this rate we will achieve parity in 700 years.”
Sigh.
(via The Hollywood Reporter, image via Flickr/DFID)
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