Statistics on women in film

This page collects information about and statistics on women in SF film.

Women as directors, producers, executives

• On the FSFwiki, we have highlighted in bold the episodes directed by women on many SF TV series. See, e.g., The X-Files, Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica.

Women as writers

• On the FSFwiki, we have highlighted in bold the episodes written by women on many SF TV series. See, e.g., The X-Files, Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica.
• "Feminist critic Marjorie Rosen documents the situation that, while by the 1920s motion pictures were 'the nation's fourth largest industry,' the percentage of women working as scenarists and screenplay writers slipped from 21 percent in 1928 to 15 percent in 1935, and by 1940 the number had dropped to 11 percent (Popcorn Venus, 397)."
• "Over the last four years [from 2001 to 2004], the percentage of women working as directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors on the top 250 domestic grossing films has declined from 19 percent in 2001 to 16 percent in 2004."
• "And despite the fact they are always shouting about how many women hold high-level jobs, show business remains one of the most sexist industries. Some cold hard facts: the percent­age of working female writers in film hovers between 17 and 19 percent. And according to a Writers Guild of America study, that figure has not budged since 1999. Television is a shade better, but the numbers there are pretty uninspiring as well: only 26 per­cent of TV writers are women."

Women as lead actors

• "Two Female Leads", XKCD went through a variety of films to discover top-billed female actors: virtually no films with two top-billing females; virtually no films with a male/female pair where the female tops the billing; and tons of films with two top-billing males.