Nearly six months after its inaugural meeting, the Women’s Media Summit has unveiled its promised action plan for combating gender inequality in the media. The Summit released a white paper that serves as “the blueprint for a new national movement to achieve gender justice in entertainment media.” A press release for the document explains, “The stories and images in media are influential in shaping virtually every aspect of our lives, and it is vitally important for women to take their rightful place as equal participants to and contributors in our cultural narrative.”
The white paper suggests seven strategies to achieve equality for women on and offscreen:
- Litigation against gender discriminatory practices
- Lobbying policymakers at the federal level to address persistent gender discrimination in entertainment media
- Tax credits to encourage the hiring of more female filmmakers
- Development of a financing network for female filmmakers
- Development of a promotion fund to advertise films made by women
- Marketing to educate the public about the issue of gender discrimination in Hollywood
- A consumer campaign to encourage viewers to vote with their dollars for gender equity in Hollywood
“The Women’s Media Summit was so deeply powerful because we came together as a community of women and created The White Paper,” the Summit’s keynote speaker, Alysia Reiner (“Orange Is the New Black”), stated. “As an actress and producer who loves hiring other women and breaking both statics and status quo, I love that we are helping create an actual system to reward those choices.”
“Hollywood has kept women filmmakers shut out for decades because it is allowed to self-regulate and faces no effective oversight body,” added Summit co-chair Maria Giese. “Now is the time to stop relying on inside-industry solutions and demand the opportunity for equal participation.”
In spring of this year, more than 100 thought leaders met in Provincetown, MA for the first Women’s Media Summit. Led by event co-chairs Giese and Dr. Caroline Heldman, the Summit attendees used their three days together to discuss the state of gender in the entertainment industry and brainstorm solutions to address the insidious issue. Alongside the white paper, the Summit also developed two new programs as a result of the meeting: The Women’s Media Action Coalition (WeMac) will oversee implementation of the seven strategies and GradeMyMovie.com is a resource that grades films based on the number of women and people of color employed in behind-the-scenes-roles.
You can read the entire “White Paper on Gender Inequality in Film and Television” here.
