Women Continue To Disappear From TV

Amanda Mae Meyncke August 24, 2011

It’s sad but true, and unsurprising in the least: the number of women on television continues to decline, both in front of and behind the camera. The L.A. Times reported the findings of The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State which found that during the 2010-2011 season,

“Women comprised 15% of writers on the prime-time dramas, comedies and reality shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW, down from 29% in the 2009-10 season … In the directing ranks, it found, 11% were women, compared with 16% the previous year.”

That’s a depressingly low number on both accounts. One would think with the massive success of shows written by and successfully portraying women (30 Rock, The Office) that the employment opportunities would have skyrocketed, but this simply isn’t the case.

“In addition to the drops registered among writers and directors, employment for women was also down among program creators (18%) and producers (37%). It was unchanged for executive producers (22%) and up slightly among editors (20%) and directors of photography (4%), the report said.”

While this may have been the case in the past, I wonder if it will be the case going forward as there is an entire slew of female centric comedies written and created by women, starring women. New York Magazine has done an excellent roundup of new fall shows that sport women in multiple creative roles, from Whitney Cumming‘s double punch of Whitney (in which she stars) to one that she created, 2 Broke Girls with the lovely Kat Dennings. And since somebody finally figured out that all America really wants is more Zooey Deschanel, there will be New Girl, also created by a woman.

There’s plenty more coming both this fall and in the spring, but if these shows fail to be profitable, it’s unlikely the support for female content creators will remain strong, as television executives continue the pursuit of the almighty dollar.