Every Woman's Story Counts -- Including Yours




In media, as in all areas of leadership, we have a 17% problem. Regardless of what media you chose - or sector of culture including government and business leadership, women make up somewhere between 17-20% of producers and contributors, especially at senior levels and where money and decision making happen. The status of Women in Media, while slowly changing, is incontrovertible. News. Movies and Entertainment. Gaming. History and literature. Magazines. Political narrative. Online communities. School curricula. The number is, mercifully, slightly higheron line. In advertising - a major form of very visible content - 97% of creative directors are men. In movies, 75% of all producers, 80% of all editors, 86% writers, 95% of all directors are men. On screen 77% of all protagonists in top grossing films are male.



The result: We tell every conceivable kind of story about boys and men - . Whereas we continue to shroud the complexity and diversity or women's life experiences in invisibility, shame and silence.



The only way any of these ideas persists if you teach people through stories and pictures that girls and women are sub-human abstractions and religious ideals and not autonomous, morally competent human beings with rights. ~Soraya Chemaly
  

Painting by Elisabeth Slettnes


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