Movies provide the viewing audience with possibilities of how the world could exist. Unfortunately for women, movies are portraying a world in which females rarely speak, can't obtain powerful jobs and wear little to nothing at all.
A new global study found less than one-third (30.9 percent) of named or speaking movie characters are women, according to the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. That number lags far behind the 49.6 percent of women in the real world. Plus, less than a quarter (22.5 percent) of the fictional on-screen workforce is made up of women.
The study looked at popular films released between 2010-2013, with a rating of no more than PG-13, in the 10 most profitable countries (Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and United Kingdom). Researchers also chose the 10 popular movies in the U.S. during that time frame and another 10 made between the U.S. and U.K. (i.e. "Harry Potter").
"The fact is - women are seriously under-represented across nearly all sectors of society around the globe, not just on-screen, but for the most part we're simply not aware of the extent. And media images exert a powerful influence in creating and perpetuating our unconscious biases," said actress Geena Davis, Founder and Chair of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.
The female characters that do have a job in the movies are not in power positions. Male characters outnumbered females as attorney and judges (13 to 1), professors (16 to 1) and doctors (5 to 1).
