The Writers Guild of America West has released its most recent report on the status of women and people of color in Hollywood and just like the report of two years ago (and the ones before) women seem to be making no traction. In fact, in movies, it’s getting worse.
Here’s from the introduction:
The 2009 Hollywood Writers Report updates an all-too-familiar story about the challenges faced by diverse writers on the employment and earnings fronts.
The previous report — released in 2007 by the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW)
– found that business-as–usual industry practices resulted in virtually no progress for
women and minority writers. Indeed, these writers had actually gone backwards in some
areas relative to their male and white counterparts since the Guild’s 2005 report. The
2007 report thus called for “rethinking business as usual” in the industry, which would
include establishing “clear goals, reasonable timetables and effective mechanisms” for
diversifying access to writing opportunities.Despite this clarion call, the present report finds little if any improvement in the
employment and earnings of diverse writers in the Hollywood industry. White males
continue to dominate in both the film and television sectors. Women remain stuck at 28
percent of television employment and 18 percent of film employment. The minority
share of film employment has been frozen at 6 percent since 1999, while the group’s
share of television employment actually declined to 9 percent since the last report.
Although women and minorities closed the earnings gaps with white men in television a
bit, the earnings gaps in film grew.
The stats:
Women hold just 25% of all the writing jobs. TV jobs make up 28%, and film jobs make up 19%.
Earnings: There is an over $5,000 earnings gender gap in TV and almost $42,000 in film. This is the widest margin in years.
So people, men make $42,000 more per year than women. How fucked up is that! For every $100 a male screenwriter makes, a woman makes $58. That’s higher than the overall gender earnings gap.
The previous Hollywood Writers Report noted that while women writers had made considerable strides in television earnings, they appeared to be going backwards in film earnings. The current report suggests that these trends continue to hold for women writers relative to their white male counterparts.
As the steam was coming out of my ears, I emailed a few questions to Kim Myers, the director of diversity at the WGAW answered some questions about the data. (Keep in mind that the data is through the end of 2007 and that women of color are in both the women’s number and the minority numbers.)
Women & Hollywood: Why do you think that women film writers are losing ground?
Kim Myers: Although this is somewhat anecdotal, in conversation with women screenwriters most attribute this fact to the type of films that are being developed at the studios. The emphasis is on tentpole movies and franchises – many of which are comic book or graphic novel adaptations. Action is the main focus of these movies. While there are many women screenwriters who have written and continue to write action movies, this is often seen as the province of male writers. With that in mind, it could be the reason women screenwriters are getting fewer jobs – and being paid less because they are not being hired to write the “Big Movies”.
Continue reading ‘Still Sucks to Be a Female Writer in Hollywood’
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