Women and Hollywood: The New York Times has written about Hollywood sexism before. Last year, we saw a three-part series from Manohla Dargis on the institutional discrimination against women directors in the industry. But Maureen Dowd's exposé on the issue late last week took it to a whole different level.
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After reading this article, I think they need to start teaching children at a young age, how to handle the world and be able to work with diversity. Whether it is gender, race, or religion. The battle never seems to end. I just wish people would except someone for who they are. Yes, it is true that the discrimination has cause women to be louder about what they deserve, but they are just wanting opportunities. Women are great leaders and creators, however, our society is continuing to ignore that fact because of their gender. I don't see the difference between men and women when it comes to work ethic. There are some good and some bad but that isn't decided on their gender. Thats why I look up to my mother a lot. She is a leader at Disney and is fantastic at her job, everyone says that no one could do it better then her. So other women should be allowed to work as CEOs, Designers, Lawyers, and Doctors in our world. Women deserve the job just as much as men do.
THIS ISSUE IS LITERALLY SO IMPORTANT. And I feel as though the author really hits the nail on the head when she says that the main cause of the female discrimination in the business is men just not giving a flying fuck about their [women’s] struggles. My favorite quote from the women is Lena Dunham saying: "Women shouldn’t be having to hustle twice as fast to get what men achieve just by showing up”. Because the fact that women even have to try harder than men for the same jobs perpetuates the issue of women not being given the same opportunities as men. This issue literally makes me so mad and I cannot believe that men can just sit back and shrug and throw the blame on “women not trying hard enough” when they do just show up and get the jobs because they are males. I would love to see the reaction of a woman just strolling into an interview and getting the job while the boss just waves all the men aside because they aren’t “trying hard enough”.
This is so incredibly frustrating. The comment that women will get opportunities, they just need to "try harder" is so infuriating. Women get the same opportunities as men, but only when the women are working their asses off and the men are just sitting there waiting for the opportunities to land in their lap. But I think biggest issue is that the fact many men only give a very passive amount of interest to women's struggles. Think about Charlie Rose's shock when reading this article. No women would have been shocked by this because they live it and further more they take the time to educate themselves. But how much can we really shift as far as discrimination against women when half the population doesn't really give a shit. I've noticed that even when it comes to this blog, I will bet good money that most of the comments on this article will be women's voices. I remember that a group of us were discussing a similar article a few weeks ago and one of the men in the conversation said "Yeah, I didn't read that, I knew it would just be a bunch of feminists ranting." Maybe if he had taking the time to read the article or even some of the comments he would have realised that his disinterest in the issues his fellow artists are facing is one of the biggest problems.
I feel that one of the most important things that men in this industry who are aware of their privilege can do is to work harder at uplifting women's voices and pushing with women to get more of them opportunities. The main problem with this, however, as the article pointed out, is that many men just don't care enough about these issues to do anything about them. This article emphasized that when it pointed out that only one major studio head has commented on the issue since the story broke in the New York Times, even though this discussion has been going on for much longer than just since the story broke. This whole time, women have been fighting just to get this topic of conversation into the discussions of mainstream media, and now that they've made it here, it remains to be seen whether or not the men of Hollywood will actually listen. One would hope that men who recognize their privilege in this situation will help the women of Hollywood get the opportunities they deserve, without speaking over them, but if studio executives just don't care, it makes the creation of lasting change extremely difficult.
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