Gender Inequality & Discrimination in Hollywood

The question of gender inequality and discrimination is  still presented in the contemporary society. Despite enormous effort put by different movements fighting for equal gender rights, in reality discrimination still exists and can be found in different social spheres. Like an incarnation of all social tendencies, Hollywood reflects problems which exist in the contemporary  society.  Women are left behind basic processes in Hollywood. They get worse job opportunities, get less payment and, in addition, experience sexual discrimination. The question of  combination of racial and gender discrimination makes another category of discrimination. In this case, racial discrimination is supplemented by gender inequality. Women of color seldom get high positions in Hollywood.  There exists a strong imbalance in this sphere and lack of pubic attention can cause further deterioration of this situation.

The movie industry presents an example of gender discrimination and inequality. Image of beautiful relations between men and women presented on  the screens of Hollywood images looks differently in real life. Women are still discriminated in different spheres, including movie industry. Hollywood, being the biggest movie production corporation, illustrates gender discrimination when it comes to jobs distribution. This paper investigates complexity of gender relations and female discriminations presented in the contemporary movie industry in general and Hollywood in particular. Unfortunately, female discrimination exists nowadays in Hollywood same like in other spheres.  Women meet different kinds of discrimination when they start working in Hollywood and this discrimination occurs on different levels and in different situations.

Statistics show  that even movie industry, which  belongs to the sphere of art, which has never been a male-dominated sphere, still shows signs of women’s discrimination. Male actors make major part of the cast who takes part in the process of movie production. This tendency growth when it comes to the representation of average aged women. In addition, research has indicated that lesbian and bisexual characters are not presented in the movies shot during recent time. Multiple research show that there is a distinction in job division according to gender characteristics.  For example,   Stacy L. Smith,  Marc Choueiti and  Katherine Pieper in their research Inequality in 700 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race, & LGBT Status from 2007 to 2014 investigate the division of social roles and positions according to gender. They come to the conclusion that women get less leading positions in the movie industry. As pointed out in the research, “Only 30.2% of the 30,835 speaking characters evaluated were female across the 700 top‐grossing films from 2007 to 2014. This calculates to a gender ratio of 2.3 to 1. Only 11% of 700 films had gender‐balanced casts or featured girls/women in roughly half (45‐54.9%) of the speaking roles” (Smith,  Choueiti, Pieper).   In addition, their research shows that this tendency enhances with the flow of time. For example, in 2014 no female actresses aged under 45 played leading or co-leading roles  in the movies produced.  In addition, there were no Lesbian or Bisexual characters presented in the movies produced during 2014 (Smith et. al 2015). There is also discrimination according to the age of women shot in the movies. Men of different ages make major part of the cast. According to the statistics, less than 20 per cent of middle-aged actors were female. This shows a tendency to gender discrimination of actresses of middle age (Smith,  Choueiti, Pieper) In addition, women oftener represented in scenes with sexual context. As  mentioned in the same research, “In 2014, females of all ages were more likely than males to be shown in sexy attire (27.9% of females vs. 8% of males), with some nudity (26.4% of females vs. 9.1% of males) and referenced as physically attractive (12.6% of females vs. 3.1% of males)”   (Smith,  Choueiti, Pieper).  In addition, this tendency becomes even stronger when it comes other job position in the movie industry.  Researches show that women are less likely to get high job positions in Hollywood. For example,    in the research performed by Sundance Institute and Women In Film Los Angeles illustrates that women rarely get positions of movie directors in Hollywood. In the research which investigated time period from 2002 to 2014 different specialists studied  women’s involvement in leading positions in the movie industry. In addition, researches tried to investigate a correlation between gender disposition in the movie distribution industry. According to the research, ”Females directed one-quarter of the films in SFF U.S. Dramatic Competition between 2002 and 2014. Of the 208 U.S. Dramatic Competition films at SFF between 2002 and 2014, 25.5 percent had a female director (n=53) and 74.5 percent had a male director (n=155). This translates into a gender ratio of 2.9 to 1” (Smith, Pieper, Choueiti). Researchers have also found a difference in the distribution of male and female-directed films. According to the research, movies directed by women were more likely to be distributed by Independent companies, while male-directed movies were distributed by major companies which have bigger reach and resources in this industry. This division illustrates that women-directed movies have less opportunities to reach the audience.

There are different explanations of such disproportion in the industry, which have never been considered to be a sphere of male dominance.  In the theory developed by West and Zimmerman, and described in the article named “Doing Gender”, they express an idea about gender being a general social category, common for all people. According to this theory, all people in the society share same concepts about gender and those, who step away from this common norms and regulations,  become social deviants and get social disproof. This theory also assumes that gender is realized through social interaction.  This theory was used by mane specialists to explain gender inequality and gender discrimination (Connell 2010). For several decades this theory became a justification of women’s social discrimination, explaining it as set of psychological patterns common for all people. The concept of unchanging gender roles had major impact on the contemporary society. A lot of specialists agreed on the opinion about stable gender roles which had no variations. This  naturally made an impact on women’s position in the contemporary society. Thanks to the concepts about limited skills and abilities, women became limited in their social and job choices.  This situation changes in the present time and specialists leave the concept of  “doing gender” and turn to the concept of freedom of gender roles and gender expression. At the present moment a number of scholars expressed their strong position against the “doing gender” concept.  “These scholars criticize the common deployment of doing gender to document the ways    gender oppression is maintained, arguing that it is important also to high light the “undoing” of gender to further the feminist project of disman tling gender inequality”(Connell 2010). These scholars do not believe that gender roles are fixed forever and believe that individuals  have the power to  choose and change these roles.  Hopefully, this will have positive consequences in the distribution of job positions among the representatives of different genders.

Female representatives of movie-making industry also make their input in dealing with the problem of gender discrimination in movie industry. More and more women speak in public about the problem of women’s discrimination which exists in Hollywood. For example, Particia Arquette illuminated the problem of unequal male and female wages. As cited in Silman’s article,   “Patricia Arquette decried the wage gap in a rousing Oscar acceptance speech, proclaiming “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s time to have wage equality once and for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America” (Silman). This  dispute illuminates an important theme of unequal salaries in Hollywood. Actresses are paid less and this problem is often under spoken due to a lot of reason.  A lot of actresses do not want to ruin their image and  discuss financial question in public. Others do not want to lose future career opportunities. All of actresses do not want to make negative impression on their funds. This way, the question of disproportional wages is seldom discussed in public.

The problem with female directors is characterized as a “dark loop”. This means that nobody wants to hire a director without experience,  and since nobody hires them, they cannot get this experience. This is true for all directors in the movie industry, but is especially true for female ones.  The numbers of commercial successful movies show that female directors almost totally excluded from the race. In Maureen Down article named The Women in Hollywood Speak Out she gives data of women’s participation in the process of movie production,  “But the most wildly lopsided numbers have to do with who is behind the lens. In both 2013 and 2014, women were only 1.9 percent of the directors for the 100 top-grossing films. Excluding their art-house divisions, the six major studios released only three movies last year with a female director” (Down). The recent statistics show further decrease of the number of female directors. For example, research performed by Martha Lauzen shows  that “in 2014, 95 percent of cinematographers, 89 percent of screenwriters, 82 percent of editors, 81 percent of executive producers and 77 percent of producers were men” (Down). This numbers illustrate that women are not involved in the movie-making industry and their participation becomes less during the recent time.  Men occupy all principle positions  in this industry and they make everything possible to prevent women from gaining any power in it.  

The problem of gender discrimination in Hollywood became a focus of public attention during recent time. The question of this discrimination was not investigated for years,  and lack of control in this sphere  resulted in major misbalance greatly supported by male heads of production companies and studios.  At the present moment there is a hope for changes in this situation. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission started an investigation  of gender situation in movie production (Keegan).  The Commission plans to take interview from different female directors who work in the movie production industry.  This interview aims to find out about the cases of gender discrimination. In the case if results demonstrate such cases, they can become  the reason of legal issues taken against studios.  Specialist and civil activists name  these actions to be a historic step forward. Hopefully, this investigation will result in changes in distribution of working positions and enhance female participation  on leading positions in the movie industry.  Gender inequality in any field is only a reflection of major gender inequality. In order to deal with it effectively, it is important to deal with problem in general, changing perceptions and attitude in the society. Only this way good  results can be achieved.

Works Cited

    Connell, Catherine, Doing, Undoing, or Redoing Gender?  Gender and Society, Vol. 24, No. 1 February 2010, pp. 31-55 Web. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/20676845>    

 Scott, A.O., Dargis Manohla, Heroines Triumph at Box Office, but Has Anything Changed in Hollywood?,  The New York Times, July,  3, 2015. Web. < http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/movies/heroines-triumph-at-box-office-but-has-anything-changed-in-hollywood.html>

Smith, L. Stacy,   Pieper, Katherine,   Choueiti, Marc. Exploring the Careers of Female Directors: Phase III, Female Filmmakers Initiative, Co-Founded by Sundance Institute and Women In Film, Los Angeles, Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, University of Southern California. April 2015.

Web. < http://www.sundance.org/pdf/artist-programs/wfi/phase-iii-research—female-filmmakers-initiative.pdf>

Silman, Anna,  10 A-list actresses speak out about sexism: Has Hollywood reached a feminist tipping point? Salong,     July 18, 2015. Web. < http://www.salon.com/2015/07/17/10_a_list_actresses_speak_out_about_sexism_has_hollywood_reached_a_feminist_tipping_point/?source=newsletter>

Dowd, Maureen, The Women of Hollywood Speak Out, The New York Times, 20, 2015.

Web. < http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/magazine/the-women-of-hollywood-speak-out.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmagazine&action=click&contentCollection=magazine&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgENGINE=sectionfront&_r=1>

Smith,  L. Stacy,  Choueiti,  Marc, Pieper,  Katherine,  Inequality in 700 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race, & LGBT Status from 2007 to 2014, Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative, 2015.  Web. < http://annenberg.usc.edu/pages/~/media/MDSCI/Inequality%20in%20700%20Popular%20Films%208215%20Final%20for%20Posting.ashx>

Keegan,  Rebecca,  The Hollywood gender discrimination investigation is on: EEOC contacts Women Directors, October 2015,  Los Angeles Times, Web. <http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-women-directors-discrimination-investigation-20151002-story.html>

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