When Women Run the Show, TV's Gender Gap Narrows

In advance of the Emmys, new research shows television has a long way to go before achieving equality behind the scenes.

From left: Ellie Kemper, Kerry Washington, and Amy Schumer. (Photos: Steve Sands/Getty Images; Steve Granitz/Getty Images; Clodagh Kilcoyne/Getty Images)

Sep 15, 2015· 2 MIN READ

Jennifer Swann is TakePart’s culture and lifestyle reporter.

In a year when women in Hollywood have repeatedly protested their underrepresentation both behind the camera and in front of it, the silver screen has been seen as a kind of silver lining. Save for the male-dominated late-night lineup, prime-time television is the kind of place where the titans have names like Shonda Rhimes, Jill Soloway, and Jenji Kohan.

Their respective original series—How to Get Away With Murder, Transparent, and Orange Is the New Black—have all garnered some form of nomination at this year's Emmys, which have been championed for honoring an unusually diverse range of female actors. But despite those advancements, new research suggests television isn't quite as inclusive as it may seem.

"There is a perception gap between how people think women are faring in television, both on screen and behind the scenes, and their actual employment," Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, said in a statement. Lauzen should know: Her organization, based out of San Diego State University, has been tracking women's numbers on the small screen for nearly two decades. "We are no longer experiencing the incremental growth we saw in the late 1990s and 2000s," she said.

Former Late Night With David Letterman writer Nell Scovell made a similar assertion in a New York Times op-ed last week in which she argued that the so-called golden age for women in television already happened—in 1990: In that Emmys season, three out of the five shows nominated for outstanding comedy series were created by women. Of the seven shows nominated in that category this year, just two were created or cocreated by women: Transparent and Tina Fey and Robert Carlock's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. In the outstanding drama series category, a woman created just one of the seven nominated shows: Orange Is the New Black.

Overall, women accounted for about a quarter of all of TV show creators, directors, editors, writers, directors of photography, and executive producers during the 2014–15 season, according to the report, which was published Tuesday.

The proportion of women working in those key roles has not significantly increased in the last four years. During that time, women's representation has hovered consistently between 27 and 28 percent in behind-the-scenes positions. That's a bump up from 21 percent during the 1997–98 television season, but progress has largely stagnated in the last decade.

The study's other significant takeaway illustrates why gender representation behind the scenes can have visible outcomes: TV shows with at least one woman creator or executive producer were found to have a higher percentage of female leading characters. That finding rings true for shows such as Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Orange Is the New Black, Transparent, How to Get Away With Murder, and Scandal.

Not only that, but programs helmed by women also employed a greater percentage of women behind the scenes than those with exclusively male creators or executive producers. Case in point: On broadcast shows with at least one woman creator, women accounted for half the show's writers. By comparison, women accounted for just 15 percent of writers on programs with male creators.

The findings suggest that show runners like Rhimes don't just create compelling television—they also boost gender diversity in nearly every aspect of the program's production.