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New Study Underscores Hollywood’s Gender Inequality Problem

New Study Underscores Hollywood’s Gender Inequality Problem

Just weeks after Jennifer Lawrence made headlines for speaking out against the gender pay gap in Hollywood, a new study confirms that Hollywood has a big problem when it comes to gender inequality. Researchers at the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University looked at the top 700 highest-grossing movies of 2014—which make up almost all of the year’s major theatrical releases—to see how many featured women in prominent production roles. Out of all of the movies, only 13 percent were directed by women, and 9 percent featured female cinematographers. Women made up just 13 percent of all of the screenwriters and 18 percent of editors, and only 27 percent were produced by women.

Dr. Martha Lauzen, the study’s author, told Variety, “The cultural zeitgeist at the moment is very concerned with providing more people with more opportunities, but the numbers have yet to move. We’re getting a lot of public dialogue about the issue as actors like Patricia Arquette and Meryl Streep speak up, but we haven’t seen that groundswell result in higher numbers.”

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