Women Disadvantaged in TV and Theatre
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Acting is not generally thought of as 'real work' and has not previously been the subject of academic study as an occupation. Critically, unlike most jobs, acting has been unsegregated for 350 years, yet in 2004 women are still at a disadvantage in the theatre and TV.
Recent research carried out by Dr Deborah Dean of Warwick Business School looked at access to work, pay and career longevity and showed that women were at a disadvantage in all three of these areas.
Access From acceptance at drama school to getting taken on by agents and casting directors, it was found that selection was weighted in favour of men, all citing the market reality that there is more work available for male actors. Additionally, it was found that women performers self-deselected from going for particular auditions because of their perceptions of what they (and casting people) thought a character would look like/be like, which results in a merry-go-round of stereotyping (and another reason why it's not discrimination in the conventional sense).
Pay Pay is said to be largely based on a performer's market value but fewer work opportunities for women mean fewer chances to acquire market value, often resulting in lower pay - particularly at the more successful end of the business.
Career longevity Over 40 years of age, parts for women are colonized by well-known performers safer bets for television executives. Women therefore have to have built their career by this age in order to sustain them in this overcrowded segment. While both men and women have to build their careers in the same way, fewer parts plus a narrower acceptable range of age and appearance makes it harder for women to survive.
Dr Dean, herself a former professional actor and singer, says "All actors work in a competitive occupation with an unemployment rate of at least 85% at any one time. This is complicated by the fact that, atypically, most performers have a drive to work at almost any cost. On top of this, women performers and their employers acknowledge that there is less work for women and that their parts are usually written and cast in more closely confined ways. The research indicates that although acting is thought of as a marginal occupation, studying the labour processes of women performers is a reliable guide to how we think about women in wider society."
Acting is not generally thought of as 'real work' and has not previously been the subject of academic study as an occupation. Critically, unlike most jobs, acting has been unsegregated for 350 years, yet in 2004 women are still at a disadvantage in the theatre and TV.
Recent research carried out by Dr Deborah Dean of Warwick Business School looked at access to work, pay and career longevity and showed that women were at a disadvantage in all three of these areas.
Access From acceptance at drama school to getting taken on by agents and casting directors, it was found that selection was weighted in favour of men, all citing the market reality that there is more work available for male actors. Additionally, it was found that women performers self-deselected from going for particular auditions because of their perceptions of what they (and casting people) thought a character would look like/be like, which results in a merry-go-round of stereotyping (and another reason why it's not discrimination in the conventional sense).
Pay Pay is said to be largely based on a performer's market value but fewer work opportunities for women mean fewer chances to acquire market value, often resulting in lower pay - particularly at the more successful end of the business.
Career longevity Over 40 years of age, parts for women are colonized by well-known performers safer bets for television executives. Women therefore have to have built their career by this age in order to sustain them in this overcrowded segment. While both men and women have to build their careers in the same way, fewer parts plus a narrower acceptable range of age and appearance makes it harder for women to survive.
Dr Dean, herself a former professional actor and singer, says "All actors work in a competitive occupation with an unemployment rate of at least 85% at any one time. This is complicated by the fact that, atypically, most performers have a drive to work at almost any cost. On top of this, women performers and their employers acknowledge that there is less work for women and that their parts are usually written and cast in more closely confined ways. The research indicates that although acting is thought of as a marginal occupation, studying the labour processes of women performers is a reliable guide to how we think about women in wider society."
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