The Count
July 15, 2016 7:54 AM   Subscribe

"To me, the great triumph of The Count (the ongoing study, undertaken by The Lilly Awards in partnership with The Dramatists Guild, that asks the question, “Who is being produced in American theaters?”) is that it names and quantifies a reality that without data can be dismissed as speculation. Work by women writers is incredibly underrepresented in the American theater."
posted by roomthreeseventeen (8 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
One! One underrepresented group of people! Ha, ha, ha!
people of color
Two! Two underrepresented groups of people! Ha, ha, ha!
queer/trans people
Three! Three underrepresented groups of people! Ha, ha...[sigh]
posted by dances with hamsters at 9:07 AM on July 15, 2016 [8 favorites]


I can't find anything in either link that addresses a pretty key question: how many women playwrights and women-penned plays are there? Discussions of the number of women in standup comedy face the same issue. If women enter a field much less often than men, it's very hard to select them.

I get that there's a chicken-egg issue relating to representation and what people imagine is possible or likely to be rewarded. But it's not reasonable to completely ignore the question. OK, 22% of produced plays were written by women. What percent of plays were written by women? If the answer is 10%, the problem does not seem to be the selection process.

It's also interesting that the most diverse regions of the country are the Rockies and Great Plains, not the coasts.
posted by msalt at 9:23 AM on July 15, 2016


If women enter a field much less often than men, it's very hard to select them.

The article does discuss how many women are in theatre workshops, though, which means they are busy writing musicals, and account for 35-40% of those workshops.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:31 AM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


Why would women write less than men, if not institutional barriers? This addresses those. Your question seems to suggest essential gender differences--that women just don't want to tell stories or aren't funny--and that's a non-starter.
posted by Mavri at 9:32 AM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


That wasn't my read. It's a detail that helps to target a solution. Is the problem that there aren't enough female writers or that females writer's work isn't produced as often?

They aren't mutually exclusive but it might let you know if there is some low-hanging fruit to be plucked in addressing the problem. If there is gender equality among the plays produced and the issue is that few women choose to write, we can start to dig into why. Maybe there is some other field that utilizes the same skills that women find much easier to be successful in, maybe there are cultural pressures, etc.

If, on the other hand, we find that there are just as many female playwrights creating work as men but they don't make it to production as often, then it's sexist decision makers and potentially sexist audiences (I suppose audience member counts as a decision maker, sort of).

It would be similar to a study on women in STEM fields. But here we already know that a big part of the problem is not enough women pursuing STEM fields. There is also a lot of gender bias in publishing their work. IIRC women have an easier time getting published if a male name appears as the primary author. No one in their right minds thinks the disparity has anything to do essential gender differences, just that women don't want to enter STEM fields. So even if we can wave a magic wand and get rid of the bias in getting papers published, most of the work is still coming from men because most of the people in the field are men.
posted by VTX at 11:53 AM on July 15, 2016


No one in their right minds thinks the disparity has anything to do essential gender differences, just that women don't want to enter STEM fields.

Did you just lay out a huge known way in which women are discriminated against in STEM and then wrap up with it being women's fault for not wanting to enter the field?

Seriously consider just sitting back and reading for a little while, please.
posted by Etrigan at 1:06 PM on July 15, 2016 [7 favorites]


Not at all, I'm saying that women make other choices because of real and perceived barriers to entering STEM fields. STEM fields are sexist, we agree on that right? It's widely known that this is true. When considering their career options, I'm sure there plenty of women who decide that they won't be successful in that field because of all the sexism so they choose a different major or career. Undoubtedly, some women decide that they're going to pursue science despite the sexism and go on to a long career of being marginalized. Fewer still find success.

Maybe the use of the word "choice" is what has your hackles up. That it's a choice doesn't place blame anywhere. If women are given two shitty options (deal with sexism in STEM fields or pursue a a field you might not enjoy as much but has a greater chance at success) it's not their fault when they make a choice that results in inequitable outcomes. The problem is that the women only have shitty options to choose from, not that they make shitty choices.

Sexism is the problem, full stop, wanting to figure out exactly where and how it's the problem is what I think Msalt is getting at.

"Only 10% of plays produced are written by women" is a different problem than "only 10% of playwrights are women".
posted by VTX at 1:41 PM on July 15, 2016


I can't find anything in either link that addresses a pretty key question: how many women playwrights and women-penned plays are there?

The National New Play Network started the New Play Exchange a few years ago. It's a database of new work available for production that's an attempt to change the paradigm of how plays get into the hands of the producers. 52% of the playwrights who have submitted work to the database are female. Obviously -- this isn't every playwright (the exchange favors young and mid-career folks who are looking to breakdown barriers), but it is a substantial sample size. The problem really isn't that women aren't writing plays or aren't encouraged to write plays so much as the plays they are writing aren't getting produced.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 5:29 AM on July 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


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