The Number of Female Directors in Hollywood Is Dismal

Sergeant Buzzkill here, reporting for duty: Hollywood’s tiny share of female directors has not grown in the last 17 years. In fact, it’s dropped.

Variety reports on a study out of San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. Researchers crunched the numbers to see how many of the industry’s top 250 grossing films were directed by women, and found a measly 7 percent. That’s down 2 percent from 1998. Nor is directing the only field where women were losing ground. Says Variety:

Women were best represented as producers (23%) followed by executive producers (19%), editors(18%), writers (11%) and cinematographers (5%). Although there are more female executive producers and cinematographers working today than there were in 1998, the percentage of women working as writers, editors and producers have all dropped.

“Whatever is being done to address this problem is not working and we need to look for industry-wide solutions,” said the study’s author, Dr. Martha Lauzen. Hell, you’ve practically got to be Angelina Jolie before they’ll even start talking about letting you direct something. So don’t get too ecstatic over this year’s comparatively encouraging Golden Globes—we’ve got a long way to go.