Gender diversity behind the camera remains an important and under-appreciated ideal. Over at the Washington Post, I discuss why the underemployment of female filmmakers is an issue everyone should care about:

“The need for women behind the camera isn’t mere tokenism; the sex of the director makes a difference in who is shown on camera and how. According to one study, only 28 percent of speaking characters were female in films with exclusively male directors and writers. The presence of at least one female director and/or writer made that figure jump to 37 percent. The numbers are even starker when it comes to the sex of protagonists. Of movies with a female director or writer, 39 percent of the protagonists were female. When the director and writers were exclusively male, just 4 percent of protagonists were women.”

Read more at the Washington Post.