Big Brother Steps in to Help Little Sister

"In May, the ACLU asked state and federal governments to investigate the hiring practices that leave women with only a minuscule fraction of directing jobs. Now the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is taking them up on it: According to Deadline, the EEOC will start interviewing female directors next week about the discrimination they've faced." a direct quote from the article on Vulture.com entitled"The Federal Government Is Getting Involved in Hollywood’s Female-Director Problem". Our industry has gotten so terrible at hiring female directors that they are being investigated by the federal government. The article goes on to articulate how women and minorities have before been cautious filing a class action lawsuit because they, most likely rightly, believe they would be "blacklisted". This news comes alongside of more reports popping up about actresses' salaries being lower compared to their male costars. News that women are calling "water is wet". 

Some prominent male voices have spoken up in this conversation as well, Bradley Cooper has vowed to share his salary information with his female co-stars in preproduction negotiations so as to make sure they are getting equal pay. However, Avengers star and kind of asshole (who plays Hawkeye so like bring it down a peg) Jeremy Renner has said that it's not his job to negotiate his salary and that he has people to do it for him (hopefully not for long).


As a female director and writer, finding out that "In the top 100 films of 2014, women made up only 11 percent of writers and 19 percent of producers, while female DPs make up only 4 percent" is certainly discouraging but hardly surprising. But, looking at our class and seeing how many of the projects were written and directed by women, I can't help but say I'm also a little hopeful.