The Charge For Equality – Women Directors

The revolution is here—

We are in the midst of a global revolution for female empowerment and equality. This movement has been building for some years, and the new efforts for women directors have added great momentum to the cause. The campaign and ongoing support for women directors starting 2013 by the ACLU has now led to an industry-wide investigation. In turn, this has helped motivate many other countries to create sweeping programs for parity for women directors in their own film & television industries.

This is an exciting time, but it is not a time to sit back and watch.

Now is the time for all women to stand up and take part in a transformation that happens only rarely in any society – a transformation that could contribute to bringing in a new era of equality in our global civilization. Individually, we each have the chance to be a part of this change, for ourselves and for generations of women filmmakers to come.

To do so, we must get involved now. We must be vigilant, aware, educated and outspoken. I am thrilled to join Film Inquiry to offer up insights into America’s on-going EEOC joint government agency discrimination investigation for women directors.

How did I come to this?

I became intrigued with the idea of joining Film Inquiry when my brilliant friend, Tema Staig, introduced me to Manon de Reeper, our esteemed Editor in Chief. I feared her because of her name. I knew she was the person I needed to work with because it requires a person with degrees in clinical psychology and criminology to solve the problem of exclusion of women from U.S. (and indeed, global) media.

I had started spearheading this particular effort four years ago with a handful of extraordinary women in the Women’s Steering Committee of the Directors Guild of America. These years have not been without stress and strife, as the Guild itself opposed our efforts, sometimes pitting us against each other.

Even so, I can say with certainty that this work has been the most fruitful and satisfying endeavor in my 20-year career in Hollywood.

The Coming Era of Female Empowerment

In 2011, just a few people were talking seriously about the lack of women on screen: among them were Geena Davis, Melissa Silverstein, and Jennifer Seibel Newsome. The idea that the issue of women directors could help ignite the fuse to an explosive new era of female visibility and empowerment in the world had not yet been established. Today, that has changed.

Every day we can now read about bold female stars who have stepped onto the feminist warpath: Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Reese Witherspoon, Ashley Judd, Emma Watson, Patricia Arquette, Jessica Chastain, Selma Hayek, Sandra Bullock, Emily Blunt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Amy Schumer, Emma Thompson, Liv Tyler, Maggie Gyllenhaal, to mention just a few…

These gifted women help bring attention to the absence of women directors, a concern that has gained momentum for a good reason.

Why Women Directors Must Spearhead the Movement

The logic has taken hold that if we can bring female helmers into parity in their profession, we can jump start the proliferation of women in all industry professions.

The focus on women directors is critical for a number of reasons: today nearly 100% of U.S. media content reflects a mostly male point of view. Therefore the astounding potential our nation has to share our passion for equality and free speech is lost to people everywhere around the world.

Our feature films, TV, and commercials contribute greatly to the collective cultural voice of our civilization, but as demonstrated by the nominees for the 2015 Oscars, the only voices the world gets to hear from Hollywood are those of men. How can we say we have free speech in America when women’s voices are silenced and censored through exclusion from our media?

If we can change this, we can change everything

International mainstream media has already given their stamp of approval – across the board, they agree: it’s time for change. Women who speak out are being supported and celebrated. The greatest priority is to get more and more women directors to speak out. They need to know that they can now do so with confidentiality and anonymity.

Women directors from every stage in their careers, DGA and non-DGA, may contact the ACLU (https://action.aclu.org/secure/my-story-woman-director) to speak out about their experiences with discrimination. They may also contact the ACLU’s senior attorney, Melissa Goodman, by phone 213-977-5288, or email: mgoodman@aclusocal.org.

And women directors may contact Marla Stern-Knowlton at the EEOC by phone: (619) 557-7234, or by email: marla.stern@eeoc.gov to set up a time to talk with an agent.

Hollywood Fails Women

Hollywood, for all its outspoken liberalism, is an industry that has historically kept women shut out, but never more conspicuously than today. Today, in 2015, proportionately fewer women directors are working in American media than two decades ago. Women direct just 16% of episodic TV, less than 5% of studio features, and perhaps as low as 1% of commercials.

The lack of female directors seems to correspond in a troubling way to the swelling salaries that get paid to directors on studio features and TV shows. For example, 39% of documentaries (often the lowest paying category) are directed by women, while only 1.9% of top 100 studio features of 2013-14 hired women helmers.

It is astounding in how obvious the unlawful exclusion of women helmers is in terms of simple numbers. In 2014, USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism presented new statistics showing that in that year a criminally low 4 percent of movies were going to be directed by women. I invoke the word “criminal” because numbers like these indicate rampant Hollywood violations of U.S. equal employment opportunity law, Title VII.

Many opponents of change point out that the directing profession is highly competitive for men and women alike. However, as Manohla Dargis wrote this year in The New York Times: “…while individual men struggle in the industry, women struggle as a group.”

This Time We Fight Only For Women

The problem for women directors is profoundly underscored when comparing the striking disparity in the employment numbers between male and female directors of color. In the U.S. ethnic minority males make up 18% of the population and minority men direct 18% of episodic TV. Compare that with ethnic minority females who make up 19% of the US population, yet only direct 2% of episodic TV.

If ethnic minority male directors have reached their numbers in terms of demographics, why are women of color almost entirely excluded from the profession? Why have the post-1985 DGA-studio diversity agreements advanced minority men, but failed women—and failed women of color utterly?

This Time The EEOC Must Succeed

For some reason, even though the level of violations is egregious, no one has been able to do anything to effect change. Since the 1960’s three efforts by the EEOC have resulted in no advancements for women.

The EEOC held hearings to examine the problem in 1969 and found that women and minorities were being kept shut out from behind-the-scenes- jobs. They referred their findings to the Department of Justice which did set “goals and timetables” to increase some minority jobs, but women directors were left out of it. In 1978, the EEOC concluded a lengthy investigation into discrimination against women and minorities in Hollywood with a rigorous 55-page study describing the problem and calling for solutions, but it was never acted on.

Again, in 1984 under chairman Clarence Thomas, the EEOC launched a third probe into Hollywood’s race and sex discrimination but after a year, once again the investigation was ended with no change.

The Original Six

The only real advancement for women directors came thanks to the efforts of six courageous women DGA members who founded the DGA Women’s Steering Committee. Their names are Victoria Hochberg, Lynne Littman, Susan Bay, Nell Cox, Joelle Dobrow and Dolores Ferraro. Remember those names.

Starting 1979, “The Original Six” began gathering their own statistics on based on DGA deal memos. After a year of hand-counting the numbers, they were able to demonstrate that only .05% of directing jobs were going to women. As a direct result of to their work, in 1983 the DGA filed a class action lawsuit against several major studios. Two years later, the number of female director hires began to climb, and it didn’t stop until it 1995 when it reach 16%.

That said, the lawsuit itself came to a premature end when Judge Pamela Rymer ordered that, while the case was important and viable and should be continued, the DGA must step down from leading the class.

The DGA’s Conflict of Interest in Supporting Women Directors

Rymer disqualified the DGA from leading the class based on conflict-of-interest for the DGA which is a union run by its majority white male members. As stated in the Case Summary: “The court held that the conflict of interest raised by the Directors Guild’s role was sufficiently concrete and immediate to preclude the its representation of the class comprised of females and minorities.”

While Rymer’s ruling ended the lawsuit for women directors, it did not end the DGA’s complicity in keeping its female members shut out. Unfortunately, after her decision, the DGA became the primary entity enforcing lawful employment opportunity for its women members through diversity agreements created with the major studios in subsequent DGA-studio Collective Bargaining Agreements.

Even though a California 9th District Circuit Court Judge ruled that the DGA suffers an intrinsic conflict-of-interest in advancing its women members, the Guild took a an increasingly active role in pretending to advance them. More jobs for women mean fewer jobs for men, so it’s no surprise that the male-dominated Guild sharply opposes women’s every effort to receive their lawful equal employment opportunity rights.

How The DGA Fails Its Women Members

One of the most awful aspects of the struggle for female director employment is how the DGA leadership pits women against women. They deputize a few women Guild members who then actively fight the efforts of activists for change. These women are rewarded with positions in Guild governance and better job opportunities.

Women who do the bidding for the DGA leadership serve themselves individually knowing that in doing so they help perpetuate the exclusion of women as a group. They continue the marginalization of women directors who put themselves and their careers at risk in order to seek legal and political solutions for all women and to create opportunities for coming generations of women filmmakers.

In the two decades from 1995 to 2015, U.S. media has seen extraordinary growth, and the advent of new media is resulting in an explosion of new directing opportunities. Even so, female director hires have continued to remain stagnant and in decline. Until this gender imbalance changes, our world will continue to suffer.

How The Hollywood Establishment Fails Women

The media produced in Hollywood and glorified at the Oscars every year is a powerful tool capable of affecting the way people in every part of the world act and treat one another. Why do we allow this fortress of secrecy, this bastion of sexism and racism, to function as the grand architect of our nation’s projected ethos when it is illegal and we don’t agree with it?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences that awards the Oscars each year insists its only criterion is excellence, but with a membership that is 94% Caucasian and 77% male, what chance is their for other versions of “excellence” to be appreciated? This concept of excellence sounds a little like fascist art. If you have only one distinct group financing, producing, promoting and judging cinematic works, then there is very little chance of discovering new visions, new perspectives we’ve never seen before.

America deserves greater democracy in its cinematic arts, but today the U.S. risks falling hopelessly behind other countries in gender equity even while Hollywood undergoes an historic Federal investigation. It is in America’s best interest to keep up. Many European countries are moving quickly and effectively toward change, announcing sweeping calls for gender parity among directors.

Hollywood does not like the idea of change because the people in power are happy in power. This industry spends hundreds of millions every year lobbying for political support and in return government organizations pay the studios vast sums to be represented in films and TV shows. This is an industry that functions on personal relationships and reciprocity. One must not step a foot out of line. But women are stepping out of line – so out of line that they are now in-line with a whole movement that has moved well beyond our national borders.

Tomorrow’s Heroes Are Creating Change Today

I started spearheading this particular effort four years ago with a handful of extraordinary women in the Women’s Steering Committee of the Directors Guild of America. Some of them chose not to be named, but my DGA friends Lexi Alexander, Rachel Feldman, Lori Precious, Rena Sternfeld, and Melanie Wagor, among many others have been bold and stalwart, and have put their careers at risk to fight this battle for all women.

Why The Feds Are Our Greatest Hope

But today we women have the most powerful allies in the land: the ACLU, EEOC and two California state agencies are hard at work creating change for women directors. Today, their teams hardworking agents and investigators have taken up residence in LA offices to question women directors and industry players full-time.

Impartial, objective organizations like the U.S. Department of Justice EEOC are here to do the work of ensuring a fair playing field for women. We women are deeply grateful that they have once again taken up this critically important task.

Among other outcomes, it is my hope that this joint government agency investigation will result in broad, industry-wide legal action for women directors targeting Hollywood studios, mini-majors, agencies, guilds – all of the institutions in our industry that violate America’s hard-won Civil Rights law, Title VII.

Finally…

I am grateful to Film Inquiry for opening up this avenue of free speech in an industry that has historically maintained secrecy, and has used its lack of transparency to allow Hollywood to have the worst record of sex discrimination of any industry in the United States, disseminating media content that carries a skewed perspective of what our world looks like.

Joined with Film Inquiry, I look forward to helping readers keep up with this historic investigation and the revolutionary change in gender representation that is taking place right now in international media.

I plan to use every resource at my disposal to help expedite the EEOC joint U.S. government agency investigation of women in Hollywood. I have no doubt that together we can help make sure that this time the effort will result in lawful equity for women – at last.