4/1/13
Women are less prevalent than men on screen in popular media in nearly all instances, according to the nonprofit See Jane Run organization and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Whereas a gender-balanced cast is defined as featuring females in 45% to 55% of all speaking roles, women comprise less than one-third of speaking roles in children’s shows (31%) and family films (28%). Men are cast in 75% or more of the speaking roles in 50% of family films, 39% of children’s shows, and 20% of prime-time programs.
In family films, women are more likely than men to be portrayed as parents (56% versus 44%) and less likely to be employed (45% versus 67%). Women ages 13-20 that are featured in family films are less likely than those ages 21-39 to be shown in revealing attire, but are more likely to be thin.
Meanwhile, women are working in only 35% of the jobs depicted in prime time programming, 25% of jobs seen in children’s shows, and 20% of careers shown in family films. Among careers shown in family films, women are most likely to be working as academic advisors (39%), media content creators (34%), and doctors (22%).
Women are also underrepresented in science, technology, math, and engineering careers. Women are four times less likely than men to be shown on screen working in the life/physical science field, and the ratio of men to women working as computer scientists or engineers is 14.25 to 1. Furthermore, there’s not one speaking female character depicting a powerful American politician across 5,839 speaking characters in 129 family films.
Source: See Jane Run, USC Annenberg School of Journalism and Communications, Stacy Smith, Study Author, 300 S. Grand Ave., #3950, Los Angeles, CA 90071; 213-821-1546; stacymi@usc.edu; www.seejane.org.
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