Men not only dominate films for the general populace, but those for families and children as well. After studying G, PG and PG-13 rated movies over a 20-year period (1990-2009), researchers at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism concluded that men comprised 71% of all speaking roles, while women only had 29%. That’s a ratio of 2.42 to 1.

 

The shortage of women on screen even applied to extras, of whom only 17% percent were female. The study also found female characters were far more likely to be “hypersexualized” than men, and women tended to be younger than their male counterparts.

 

The study was funded by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media Research.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Wanted: More Girls on Screen (by Lisa Belkin, New York Times)

Gender Disparity On Screen and Behind the Camera in Family Films; (by Stacy L. Smith and Marc Choueiti, University of Southern California) (pdf)