Obstacle Course
Sally Storey speaks to thirteen female screen-industry practitioners to identify pitfalls and impediments on the road to gender equity in the Australian film and television landscape, as well as what steps can be taken to address them.
I have eight years experience working in the Melbourne film and television industry, and recently becoming a mother has led to a personal interest in the experiences of other women in the field. There has been limited research to date that investigates gender inequity in the Australian screen landscape. Questions around how women ‘make it work’ and continue to thrive in an industry that, in my experience, is inflexible are important. I wanted to find out more about women who have successful screen-industry careers and to determine perceived challenges for women in the field more broadly.
Published research on female participation in the film and television industries in Canada, Ireland, the UK and the US has identified a range of factors affecting career progression and opportunities: systematic obstacles to women’s participation, representation and seniority include an unconscious bias towards men; gendered roles; inflexible ‘flexible’ work conditions (excessive work hours, unpredictable schedules and geographic mobility); discriminatory hiring practices; gendered financing and distribution of projects; lack of female role models; lack of career-progression opportunities; and caring duties predominantly falling on women.
Methodology
My investigation centred on thirteen women working in the Australian film and television industry. I aimed to gain a balance between those who could be identified as ‘midcareer’ and ‘established’, across a range of industry genres (documentary, reality and drama), and between those with and without dependent children. Participant roles in the industry covered writers, directors and producers, the last of which comprising the largest group. Recruitment was principally through work contacts; the majority of participants were Melbourne-based, with the rest working in
