New Delhi, India: The first-ever global study on female characters in popular films, launched today, reveals deep-seated discrimination and pervasive stereotyping of women and girls by the international film industry. The study was commissioned by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, with support from UN Women and The Rockefeller Foundation and conducted by Stacy L. Smith (PhD) and her research team at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.
The first-ever UN sponsored global study of female characters in popular films across the world reveals that India topped the chart in showing attractive women in its movies and as much as 35 per cent of these female characters are shown with some nudity.
The study released by UN Women reveals deep-seated discrimination, pervasive stereotyping, sexualisation of women and their under-representation in powerful roles by the international film industry.
UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka introduces the findings of a ground-breaking study on gender stereotypes in global films by the Geena Davis Institute at an event to present its findings on 22 September, 2014. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
As per the UN Women report, sexualisation of female characters in movies is a standard practice across the global film industry and women are twice as likely as men to be shown in sexually revealing clothing, partially or fully naked, thin, and five times as likely to be referenced as attractive.
The study finds that Indian films have a significantly higher prevalence of sexualisation of female characters and the movies score low in depicting women in significant speaking roles and as engineers and scientists.
Indian films are third behind German and Australian movies in showing females in “sexy attire” and at 25.2 per cent India tops the chart in showing attractive females in its movies. About 35 per cent of female characters in Indian movies are shown with some nudity, the study finds. The prevalence of female directors, writers and producers in the Indian films was also not at a very high number.
While women represent nearly half of the world’s population, less than one third of all speaking characters in films are female and UK-US collaborations and Indian films are at the bottom of the pack.
Both, the American/British hybrid films (23.6 per cent) and Indian films (24.9 per cent) show female characters in less than one-quarter of all speaking roles. Even the frontrunners (UK, Brazil and South Korea) feature female characters in 35.9-38 per cent of all speaking roles on screen.