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'Frozen' director hopes her movie will inspire more women in creative leadership
By Hilary Lewis
(March 21, 2014 | Hollywood Reporter) - Frozen director Jennifer Lee became Disney Animation's first female director when she co-helmed the hit movie with Chris Buck. It's a change that she told CBS This Morning was long overdue and hopefully leads to more shifts in front of and behind the camera. Read more
Will Hollywood’s depressing treatment of women ever change?
By Alyssa Rosenberg
(March 11, 2014 | The Washington Post) - It’s the time of year when a host of organizations release their findings about how the movie industry treats women both behind the camera and in front of it, and as usual, the results are depressing. Read more
Women buy half of all movie tickets, but that doesn't mean more female characters
(March 27, 2014 | Slate.Com) - The Motion Picture Association of America released its annual report on moviegoer demographics this week, and women are well-represented in the seats. Last year, women made up 52 percent of the moviegoer population and bought half of all tickets sold.
Those numbers prompted Women and Hollywood to put pressure on Hollywood studios to better reflect its audience on the big screen: “So again, we ask, if women are going to the movies more than men, why do only 15% of the films star women?” Melissa Silverstein wrote. Read more
Campaigners welcome 'milestone' agreement at UN gender equality talks
By Liz Ford
(March 23, 2014 | TheGuardian.Com) - UN Member states have agreed that gender equality and women's rights must be prioritised in future discussions on what should be included in the next set of sustainable development goals.
After two weeks of negotiations in New York, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) ended in the early hours of Saturday morning with an agreement that called for the acceleration of progress towards achieving the millennium development goals, and confirming the need for a stand-alone goal on gender equality and women's empowerment in the set of international targets that will be introduced once they expire in 2015. Read more
Maybe it's time for employers to stop neing so sexist when women ask for raises
By Amanda Hess
(March 28, 2014 | Slate.Com) - This week, the New York Times published a salary negotiation guide for women. The primer aims to help female employees ask for raises with a careful blend of masculine aggression and feminine deference that's been proven to disarm employers who secretly hate women who act like men, or women who act like women, or women who act like themselves. Read more
Judge to female lawyers: Love your cleavage, but “tone it down” to avoid looking like a “slut”
By Amanda Hess
(March 27, 2014 | Slate.Com) - Last week, I wrote about the confusing, conflicting standards that dictate how female lawyers ought to dress in court. Are pantsuits acceptable, or should women stick to skirts? How about dresses? With or without a jacket? Should that jacket’s cut be boxy or more feminine? And is pink ever OK? The answer depends on the personal tastes of the judge, the stature of the court, and the region of the country it’s in—and those gradations add up to an unclear and unfair expectation for women in the courtroom. Read more
Even in supposedly highbrow publications, powerful women are objectified by male journalists who clearly feel threatened by them
By Bronwen Clune
(March 20, 2014 | The Guardian) - A few years ago, while enjoying the indulgence of the weekend newspaper, I was troubled to discover that Marieke Hardy had, among other fine qualities, “nice tits”. This was according to a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald’s supplement Good Weekend (not online), written by John van Tiggelen, who even verified the fact with Hardy’s housemate. Read more
Women still missing in sciences -- what it means for business
By Kathryn B. Vasel
(March 19, 2014 | Fox Business) -
Shedding negative stereotypes and reaching gender parity in the sciences would create an additional 300,000 additional doctors in sciences a year, according to a new survey. Read more
Related story: Sexism in the technology industry: the website that says it all (The Guardian, March 28, 2014)
"Paycheck to Paycheck": Maria Shriver found the most sympathetic poor woman in America
By L.V. Anderson
(March 17, 2014 | Slate.Com) - Monday night, the Maria Shriver–produced documentary Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life and Times of Katrina Gilbert will premiere on HBO. (It will also be available to stream for free all week.) The film is the most visible component of the Shriver Report, Shriver’s campaign to draw attention to poverty’s outsized effect on American women. Forty-two million women live in poverty, the Shriver Report informs us, and 28 million children. Paycheck to Paycheck takes a microscopic view of this vast problem, chronicling a year in the life of one Tennessee woman and her three young kids. Read more
Gender equality in the US House: A state-by-state quarter-century report card (1989-2014)
By Eric Ostermeier
(March 17, 2014 | Humphrey School of Public Affairs) - A study of 5,325 congressional elections finds the number of female U.S. Representatives has more than tripled over the last 25 years, but the rate at which women are elected to the chamber still varies greatly between the states. Read more
Social media and self esteem: Study links spending time on Facebook
and eating disorder
By Katy Waldman
(March 14, 2014 | Slate.Com) - The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery recently surveyed a group of its 2,700 members and discovered that 1 in 3 doctors saw an uptick in procedure requests for 2013. The researchers attributed the rise in part to “patients being more self-aware of looks in social media.” Read more
Sali Hughes: No make-up selfies on Facebook will not beat cancer alone (TheGuardian.Com)
"Pink Ghetto": How do women end up in women's media?
By Jessica Grose
(March 19, 2014 | Slate.Com) - Feministing highlights a chart about who writes what in newspapers and magazines, which uses data from the Op-Ed Project. Its results are not especially surprising, even if they are dismaying: Female journalists continue to dominate coverage of family and gender issues, and men continue to dominate coverage of everything else (save “style,” which has a 50/50 gender byline split). Read more
Mummy blogs get glamorous makeover
By Zoe Wood
(March 15, 2014 | The Guardian) - Does my bump look good in this? It's a question that preys on the mind of the heavily pregnant fashionista. But help is at hand, thanks to new glossy magazine-style blogs aimed at expectant and new mums more concerned with keeping up with the front row than the hand-wringing of their ante-natal group. Read more
How not to talk about the culture of sexual assault
By James Hamblin
(March 29, 2014 | The Atlantic) - "I don’t think we’ve ever done this on this program before," Jian Ghomeshi began his show on Tuesday. His daily radio hour, Q, airs in Canada on CBC, and also reaches an international audience in syndication and as a popular podcast. “It has been quite a 24 hours of an outpouring of reactions to our program yesterday … There has been a lot of anger directed toward this show,” Ghomeshi said. He began reading some of those reactions. Read more
How to remove gender bias from the hiring process
By Will Yakowicz
(March 18, 2014 | Inc.) - A new study finds that when equally qualified male and female candidates apply for a job, managers are much more likely to hire the man. Read more
Must every young-adult action heroine be petite?
By Julianne Ross
(March 21, 2014 | The Atlantic) - In a week when the Republican Party marked the one-year anniversary of its reset strategy with women, Democratic candidates, particularly women, are hammering their male opponents over equal pay and other women’s issues, hoping to drive up turnout and support among “breadwinner moms,” a key voting bloc in high profile races across the country. Read more
International Women's Day: More than just a cover story
By Jane Martinson
(March 6, 2014 | The Guardian) - If it weren't for the colour of the veil, this could be any other popular glossy aimed at women getting married. But in place of the traditional white, the beautiful young girl staring from the cover wears a black veil and, instead of a smile, she wears a look of pure fear. Read more
Facebook now offers more than 50 custom gender identifiers
By Will Oremus
(Feb. 13, 2014 | Slate.Com) - Facebook on Thursday added more than 50 custom gender options for users who don't identify simply as "male" or "female." While this was welcome news to LGBTQ advocates, the company did not publish a list of all the options, leaving users to begin typing into an empty text field in order to bring up a drop-down menu of autocomplete choices. Read more
The wage gap between men and women
By Samantha Grossman
(March 6, 2014 | Time) - We all know that women tend to earn less than men, but this infographic illustrates just how much less. The graph at the top shows how the average pay gap across the European Union has fluctuated over recent years, and the map below shows the percentage difference between male and female wages in nations across the globe. Read more
Google Doodle gets it right for International Women's Day
By Sarah Gray
(March 7, 2014 | Salon) - The often sexist Google Doodle got it right for International Women’s Day, which is celebrated on March 8. Read more
It's cool to be a geek, EU tells women
(March 6, 2014 | Reuters) - A lack of women in high-tech jobs is costing the European Union billions of euros, the bloc's technology Commissioner Neelie Kroes said on Thursday, starting a campaign to attract women into a sector that faces a deepening skills shortage. Read more
America & Women's and Gender Studies: A discussion with Dr. Tracey Deutsch
(HouseofHaddy Production on SoundCloud) - An Indepth Interview with Dr. Tracey Deutsch about the increasing influence of Women's and Gender studies on the American society and the importance to keep the programs alive. We also discuss her Julia Child Project and book Building a "Housewives' Paradise."
A brief history of sexism in TV coverage of the Olympics
By Nolan Feeney
(Feb. 21, 2014 | The Atlantic)- For some Olympic fans, spotting and calling out sexism in Olympics coverage has become a sport in itself—and the past two weeks of Sochi coverage have certainly kept those vigilant fans busy. Read more
Hillary Clinton and the "Whiney Women"
By David Weigel
(Feb. 13, 2014 | Slate.Com) - I haven't paid too much attention to "The Hillary Papers," the trove of memos and musings by the late Clinton ally Diane Blair that was scooped by Washington Free Beacon reporter Alana Goodman. Mostly I've just marveled at the somersaults some news organizations did to avoid crediting Goodman, a reporter who's caught the media napping before, with the story. (My colleague John Dickerson credited the WFB in the lede of his own story.) Read more
Ingrid Michaelson continues tradition of gender-bending music videos
By Ruth Tam
(Feb. 8, 2014 | The Washington Post) - If there’s anything I love more than an ‘80s throwback, it’s a gender bending ‘80s throwback.
Singer songwriter Ingrid Michaelson is mostly known as a soft-spoken, indie singer-songwriter but in the video for her latest single “Girls Chase Boys,” she channels her inner ‘80s pop queen, remaking Robert Palmer’s classic 1988 video “Simply Irresistible.” Read more
UCLA: Hollywood's lack of diversity is a disconnect from America
(Feb. 20, 2014 | Geena Davis Institute of Gender in Media) - Hollywood is far less diverse than American society as a whole, both in front and behind the camera, costing the entertainment industry valuable income, according to a new report coming out of UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American studies. Read the report on 2014 Diversity in Hollywood
Age restrictions for models making a difference at fashion week
By Eliana Dockterman
(Jan. 31, 2014 | The Guardian) - The runways at New York Fashion week are looking a little more mature this year. The state of New York passed a law in October that classified models under the age of 18 as child performers in an attempt to curb use of 14-year-olds on the runway. Read more
Democratic women candidates make equal pay a top issue in midterm elections
By
Nia-Malika Henderson and Jackie Kucinich
(March 20, 2014 | The Washington Post) - In a week when the Republican Party marked the one-year anniversary of its reset strategy with women, Democratic candidates, particularly women, are hammering their male opponents over equal pay and other women’s issues, hoping to drive up turnout and support among “breadwinner moms,” a key voting bloc in high profile races across the country. Read more
Let's not drag gender stereotypes into L'Wren Scott's death
By Jane Martinson
(March 18, 2014 | The Guardian) - Coverage of the designer's apparent suicide has focused on her childlessness and unmarried status, when the truth is that 90% of those who kill themselves suffer from psychiatric disorders. Read more
"Let’s Ban Bossy"
By Lynn Sherr
(March 6, 2014 | Parade) - This powerful trio, who on the cover of Parade sport their “Ban Bossy” buttons, aim to change the conversation about girls and leadership. Ninth grader Sheryl Sandberg wasn’t shy about raising her voice. But the message she got from a faculty adviser didn’t praise that trait. “She’s too aggressive, too bossy,” the teacher said. “You don’t want to be bossy.” Read more
Bangladesh's home truth
By Tahmima Anam
(March 5, 2014 | The New York Times) - It’s fine to call yourself a feminist in Bangladesh. In fact, it’s even encouraged.
The title, earned through the work of a generation of women who heralded the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 with promises of a transformed nation, has not yet accrued the complicated history that makes it an uncomfortable label for women in the West. In London, I hear the word whispered, hedged with caveats and reservations; in Dhaka, it is shouted and sung in public forums as a riposte to the cacophonous voices of religious fundamentalism and ingrained patriarchy. Read more
Hollywood actress realized how "limited her roles have been"
By Hillary Crosley
(Feb. 20, 2014 | Jezebel) - Olivia Wilde is sharply aware of her place in Hollywood, and recently had some great things to say about women expanding their roles in Tinsel Town.
During a panel called The State of Female Justice: Los Angeles, the actress shared that once she realized that she was best known as Dr. Thirteen from House, she was struck by how limited her roles have been, despite her 40-plus movies as a supporting character. Read more
Related article:
Are Hollywood female executives to blame for Hollywood's unrealistic beauty form?
2014 Women in Media report: "9 depressing facts"
By Charlotte Alter
(Feb. 19, 2014 | Time Business) - Women are inching towards media equality, but it’s slow going. That’s what we learned from the Women’s Media Center’s annual report on the status of women in TV, news, movies, and even social media.
Read more
Related Stories
Women are scarce in journalism, film, and TV, and the numbers aren't budging (Slate.Com) Women, you'll likely die before there's gender parity among leaders (LaTimes.Com)
New documentary series to focus on women in Philadelphia history
By Tirdad Derakhshani, Inquirer Staff Writer
(Feb. 26, 2014 | Philly.Com) - On Tuesday, the documentary production company founded by Philadelphia politician Sam Katz will launch its second major project, Women of Philadelphia: A Documentary, a six-episode TV series created by Nancy Moses, a former executive director of the Philadelphia History Museum. Read more
U.N. report: Progress for women is unequal
By Somini Sengupta
(Feb. 12, 2014 | The New York Times) - Twenty years after a landmark United Nations summit meeting in Cairo called on countries around the world to allow women greater control over their health and destiny, women worldwide have fewer children, are less likely to die of childbirth and have made great strides in literacy, according to a major report released Wednesday by the world body. Read more Read more
The Woody Allen debate . . .
By Noah Berlatsky
(Feb. 10, 2014 | The Atlantic) - Woody Allen. Just saying the name now brings up a host of charges and counter-charges and floods of self-declared experts sparring clumsily with one another in comments threads. The public discussion of Allen's daughter’s allegations against him often amounts to a depressing, infuriating, callous way to deal with the issue of abuse. Read more
Getty Images' attempt to combat female stereotyping is noble but in vain
By Angela Phillips
(Feb. 11, 2014 | The Guardian) -Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg wants to change the way women see themselves. She is concerned about the stock images of women that flow into our lives like digital soup: mothers pouring milk, women in knickers smiling or pouting, dominatrices in tight skirts and sharp heels, lots of glossy hair, and nobody over size 10. Read more
Will Ferrell’s Production Company Creates Division For Female-Led Projects
By Maya Rhodan
(Feb. 12, 2014| Time Entertainment) - Comedian Will Ferrell is launching a female-focused division of his production company.
Gloria Sanchez Productions will aim to produce “female-led” television and film projects, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Jessica Elbaum, a long-time executive at Gary Sanchez Productions, Ferrell’s existing company with Anchorman director Adam McKay, will be at the helm. Read more
One billion rising for justice: Live stream from Miami on Feb. 14
By Joann Weiner
(Feb. 14, 2014 | The Guardian) -Click here to read the report.