How Many Women Do You Actually See?

Right now in my women's studies class we are talking about the lack of representation within the media for women. It may not seem like such a big deal but living in a society as well as a generation where everything is media produced means what we see influences us. This includes seeing more men (typically white men) on television as well as movies. This also means listening to men speak more often because they have more speaking roles and still seeing the patriarchy at hand given specific roles within television and film. In family films, there are, on average, 2.42 male characters to every female character. If that isn’t bad enough, don’t forget the disproportionately lower number of women film critics, directors and producers. It is a large problem that needs to be addressed. 

While there is a lack of women in general in the media there is also a lack of colored women as well. Coming from all aspects with television/film stars, newscasters, directors, producers, etc. Even people who are interviewed, quoted, and most everything else involving the news. Women accounted for only 12% of on-screen protagonists in 2014, and 30% of characters with speaking parts. There are also persistent racial disparities: White people are cast in lead roles more than twice as often as people of color, and white film writers outnumber minority writers 3 to 1. In 17% of films, no black people had speaking parts. The issue of the news is relevant as well because women are on camera only 32% of the time in evening broadcast news, and write 37% of print stories news stories. Between 2013 and 2014, female bylines and other credits increased just a little more than 1%. At the New York Times, more than 67% of bylines are male. Also the issue of assuming roles, such as the plumber, the CEO, the lawyer all typically are thought to cast a male first. It should be opened up to everyone and even if the character is written to have "male" characteristics then let a fantastic actress display them. 

There is such a gender bias within the media today that without representation girls will still feel insignificant, especially minorities. There needs to be powerful and successful roles given out, more females on the news, more female journalists printed; there just needs to be more.


Statistics used from:
-Time.com
-Womensmediacenter.com
-nytimes.com