By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 10 years ago

Infographic: Only 5 percent of recent major films were directed by women

Women and Hollywood has a depressing new infographic on what has got to be the biggest gender gap in Hollywood–an industry not exactly known for being a paragon of gender equality. Despite the fact that women make up their fair share of film school grads, and there are plenty of great female directors, less than five percent of films produced by the major studios in the last five years were directed by women.

infographic of women directors

Unsurprisingly, female directors lag behind when it comes to gettin the top accolades for their work, too–and no doubt the lack of role models exacerbates the problem in a male-dominated, risk-averse industry. Only one woman–Jane Campion–has ever won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman who has ever won best director at the Academy Awards–and, in fact, only four women have ever even been nominated. But, who knows, maybe this is the year that changes?

Maya DusenberyMaya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

Read more about Maya

Join the Conversation

Related Content

▪▪▪▪▪