The Downward Trend of Women in Media Production

The presence of females in media production has alarmingly decreased.  The articles assigned reveal the drastic decrease in female writers and producers.  The writers also make relatively reasonable causes of the decrease of females in media production; however, I found myself agreeing with one particular cause.  Maureen Ryan’s article, “Why is Television Losing Women Writers? Veteran Producers weigh in”, states that possible cause of a lack of women in media production is the economy.  In general, the number of employees on a writing team is decreasing; however, one producer felt that minorities are being “disproportionately impacted” and are the first to be dismissed.  Unfortunately, it has been determined that women are the minority.  I find it startling that a woman who may be more qualified than a man for a position on a writing staff may not even be considered because in a time of economic crisis minorities are not being hired.  This realization is very sad, and much like many others I began to think that women were having more of a presence behind the scenes. Another statement made was that men are still considered to be the breadwinners in a family, while women only have to provide for themselves.  This is completely inaccurate and it isn’t rare to find a stay at home dad and a successful women working in the professional world. 

            This brings me to where I strongly agree with Ryan’s article.  Ryan states that there are still men in media production who just don’t get it and these are the men that strive to make the female writers uncomfortable in a professional atmosphere and who believe that men cannot discuss inappropriate fart jokes.  There are men who are extremely traditional and who are accustomed to a male dominated industry.  These are the men that prevent young female writers from mentoring opportunities.  I believe until these men “get it” the number of female staff writers will continue to decrease or remain extremely low.  If I was trying to make it as a big Hollywood writer I would find myself becoming extremely frustrated because my career was continuously disrupted by past traditions.  However, this must be true for many careers.

A critique of a critique of "women in media production" initiatives

The readings for this blog posted were focused on the lack of women in the production of media. I was most interested in Dawtrey’s discussion of Sweden and Norway’s mandates that more women be included in media production. One of the reasons Dawtrey discusses for why some people think these initiatives are flawed is that there are simply not enough women applying for these jobs, so the industry has to hire less talented writers to meet their quota. For this blog post, I would like to expand on and refute this idea.

            While it currently may be true that there are not enough women applying for the jobs to make the initiative work, I do not believe that this is a problem that will  persist in the future. I believe the problem of a lack of women is not simply that women are incapable of, or disinterested in, doing these jobs but that they have historically been told that there is not a place for them in the media industry. Thus, many capable, bright young women who were considering pursuing a career in media production may have forgone training in media production, opting instead to pursue training in a field that would more readily accept them.

          However, with these initiatives, young women may now be more likely to decide that they can indeed enter the world of media production. I believe this is much similar to the presence of women in science. Women have been historically discouraged from pursuing careers in science. However, with the advent of many “women in science” initiatives, women are less discouraged from studying science, and the number of women in the field has increased. I think that, like the “women in science initiatives,” these “women in media production” initiatives will show young women that there is a place for them in the world of media production and thereby increase the number of women who receive training and apply for jobs in the field. Thus, the argument that the mandates are leading to a decrease in the level of talent possessed by hired-writers will eventually be rendered irrelevant.