Women Shut Out of Major Non-Acting Primetime Emmy Nominations

A new report by the Women’s Media Center examining the 2018 Primetime Emmy nominations states that despite growing efforts working toward parity in the industry, men received 70% of the non-acting nominations, with 14 of the relevant 96 categories including no female nominees at all.

Categories like directing, producing, writing, and editing were particularly male-dominated, with WMC reporting that women represented a mere 6% of total directors this year (compared to last year’s 10%), 20% of editors, and 31% of producers. Though the writing categories saw an increase in female nominees from last year’s 21% to 23%, men outnumbered women in nearly every one of the 43 producing, writing, and directing categories (Outstanding Writing for A Comedy Series being the exception, with three male and three female nominees).

WMC’s research goes on to detail the other categories that highly featured male nominees (including lighting design, cinematography, sound, and music categories), as well as the few non-acting categories that were particularly female-heavy (casting, costume, makeup, and hairstyling categories, all traditionally female jobs).

They acknowledge that women are having a particularly tough time breaking into the most powerful categories, despite plenty of eligible female directors and producers. A few particularly notable women were overlooked for their work behind the camera, namely Ava DuVernay (Queen Sugar), Jodie Foster (Black Mirror), and Issa Rae (Insecure).

WMC highlights that while opportunities are growing for women writers and directors on popular television programs and in other parts of the entertainment industry, the Emmy nominations do not yet reflect these increased efforts for inclusion.

For more information on The Women’s Media Center, check out their website.

 

 

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