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How Are We Seeing Jane?

Males outnumber females 3 to 1 in family films

In contrast, females comprise just over 50% of the population in the United States. Even more staggering is the fact that this ratio, as seen in family films, is the same as it was in 1946.

In speaking characters, females are consistently unrepresented

Women make up only 28.3% in family films, 38.9% in prime time programs and 30.8% in children’s shows. Children’s programs (30.5%) and comedy series (31.5%) are the most imbalanced genres in prime time television, with less than a third of all on screen speaking characters coded as girls or women.

Women are much more likely to be shown as sexy

Females are almost four times as likely as males to be shown in sexy attire. Females are nearly twice as likely as males to be shown with a diminutive waistline.

Females are also underrepresented behind the camera.

Across 1,565 content creators, only 7% of directors, 13% of writers, and 20% of producers are female. This translates to nearly five males working behind-the-scenes to every one female.

Women aren’t shown in business roles

Not one female character is depicted at the top of the financial sector (e.g., investor, developer or an economic official), legal arena (e.g., chief justices, district attorney) or journalism (i.e., editor in chief) across a sample of 129 G, PG or PG-13 rated films from 2006-2011. In comparison, women represented 25.5% of all chief executives in 2010.

In fact, they aren’t shown working much either

80.5% of all working characters are male and 19.5% are female, which is a contrast to real-world statistics, where women change to comprise 47% of the U.S. labor force in 2011.

Women especially are not represented in STEM jobs

In family films, the ratio of men to women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields was 14.25 to 1. In the U.S., the ratio of men to women in comparable STEM positions is 1 in 4. Women with STEM jobs earned 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs–resulting in a much smaller gender wage gap than in other occupations.

* All facts are supported by research conducted by Dr. Stacy Smith, Ph.D. at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism

IF SHE CAN SEE IT, SHE CAN BE IT®