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In India, the 2012 Delhi gang rape case catalyzed protests for women’s rights, particularly in regard to their safety. These demands were rekindled with vigor anew with the eruption of the #MeToo movement. In the Indian film industry, the most visible change appeared in the gradual increase of films with womenleads. But behind the scenes, there has been comparatively less change in female representation. Currently, approximately less than 10% of film directors in India are women. Considering the impor­ tance of having stories about women being made by women, in this article I examine the factors that hinder women’s entrance and tenure in the Mumbai film industry. I argue that a composite of concerns, including but not limited to reputability and personal security, thwarts women’s progress in the industry. I base my con­ clusions on interviews with women and men working in the film industry, conducted in Mumbai in 2017. I use the framework of the Ambivalent Sexism Index developed by psychologists Glick and Fiske in 1996, and revised in 2013, (1996, 2001, 2013) to examine my interviewees’ encounters with hostile and benevolent sexism. This article complicates our understanding of the reasons that limit the work of women beyond explanations of overt discrimination.

This article examines the work of intimacy coordinators on television drama and film sets and the rise of this new role in the screen industry from a policy and production studies perspective. Since HBO made the employment of an intimacy coordinator mandatory on all productions with scenes of sex, nudity, and physical intimacy in 2018, intimacy coordination has become an industry standard and expectation. Through interviews and analysis of production practices, this article explores how intimacy coordinators change and challenge established production practices on and off set and interrogates the reasons behind the emergence of this role in the screen industry. It situates intimacy coordination in the context of recent industry policies and initiatives that promote equality and diversity, and counter harassment and abuse in the post-Weinstein era. It analyses this role on relation to changing production and distribution models and regimes in the era of VOD portals. The article argues that intimacy coordination is not only a catalyst for reforming practices on set, but a way for the screen industry to negotiate contemporary and historic concerns about sexual harassment and abuse, comply with recent policy and funding requirements, and a mechanism for mitigating economic and reputational risk to productions.

This article uses Acker’s concept of inequality regimes to analyze qualitative research findings on work-life balance and gender equality for women in British television production. Female survey respondents, focus group participants, and interviewees spoke of their subjective experience of gendered work practices which disadvantage women as women. These findings build on existing research showing gender disadvantage in the industry, leading to loss of human capital and a narrowing of the range of creative experience. They also show that growing numbers of women are seeking alternative modes of production, at a time of increased awareness of inequality. Such alternatives suggest that change is possible, although it is strongly constrained by organizational logics and subject to continued resistance, in line with Acker’s framework of analysis. Visibility of inequalities is the key to supporting change.

Acting, especially in the screen arts industry, is a job where women are subjected to pronounced and widely accepted socio-cultural aesthetic ideals within an industry that has become renowned for its tolerance for and justifications of sexism and sexualized violence. However, there is a limited amount of scholarship that examines actors and acting from a work and employment perspective. Drawing on the literature on work insecurity and gender inequities in cultural work, this article examines the screen industry from the perspective of women actors in a semi-peripheral location in Canada. This is a cohort that has managed to remain in the industry, despite high levels of attrition. Drawing on in-depth semi-structured interviews, our participants identify a range of strategies they employ (toughness, silence, humour, refusal, creative resistance) to respond to workplace sexism and gender-based constraints as they try to balance their creative agency with career sustainability. Participants emphasized that finding multiple outlets for realizing creative agency is crucial to counteracting everyday sexism and remaining in the industry.

This article interrogates the localized experiences of present-day workers who identify as women in Australian postproduction sectors, including editing, visual effects (VFX), and animation, exploring sex­ ism and perceptions of change in the age of #MeToo. Considering the significant numbers of women working in these sectors, and the scant research into their experiences undertaken in an Australian context, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with ten women in various roles and in various geographical locations in Australia. This qualitative approach to data collection aims to explore inequalities that may not be captured in industry surveys, providing fine-grain details of the ways that individuals in postproduction experience sexism. The resulting data suggests that while there is continuity between the gendered experiences of these workers and that of women in industry sectors that have already been documen­ ted, there are, however, new observations about changes in work­ place behavior in the sector, brought about by growing public awareness of industry discrimination and harassment and of shifts in Australian industry policy. The authors isolated recurring themes within women’s gendered experiences in relation to how they per­ ceived the impact of the gender-equity initiatives on the attitudes of their co-workers, their workplace opportunities, and their experi­ ences as workers.

On 5 October 2017, The New York Times published an article in which Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment by five women. The scandal grew to enormous proportions as more allegations against him followed. This led to the #MeToo and TIME'S UP movements, initiatives to fight sexual harassment in the workplace. Given that media discourse can have an impact on the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours of the public regarding these phenomena (van Dijk 1989), this study adopts a Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) perspective and explores how power and gender inequality are sustained, (re)shaped and/or challenged by focusing on the reporting of the Harvey Weinstein case which - to the author's best knowledge - has not been analysed before in the field of linguistics. It draws from the systemic functional linguistics and the discourse-historical approach and it examines the way the perpetrator, the accusers and the phenomenon of sexual harassment were discursively constructed in five key articles published in the New York Times. The findings differ in a major way from existing research on sexual violence against women in that 1) the perpetrator, Weinstein, was depicted with clear ascription of agency, 2) women victims' voices and feelings were foregrounded, 3) the link between sexual harassment and the social context in which it occurs was discussed.

In August 2017, the South African advocacy group Sisters Working in Film and Television (SWIFT) launched the #ThatsNotOk campaign, which has to date produced six episodes of short films (one episode in two parts, making it seven in total) elucidating the different forms sexual harassment takes, and the different scenarios in which it occurs, in the South African film and television industries. This profile engages with SWIFT and the Public Service Announcement (PSA) films as discursive sites and texts respectively, and provides textual analyses of the PSAs in the context of digital feminism and feminist activism against sexual harassment in the film and television industries. The profile motivates that as expressions of digital feminism, the PSAs critique the pervasiveness and normalisation of sexual harassment, while failing to engage with or critique the neoliberal logic and structure of the film and television industries.

Since 2017, increased sexual harassment incidents have been reported in Hollywood; yet, little guidance has been offered on how organizations, which are informally governed by their network members, can effectively reduce sexual harassment. Building upon the theory of network governance, this paper suggests social mechanisms, which are used to coordinate and safeguard exchanges between Hollywood organizations, are more effective at reducing incidents of workplace sexual harassment than traditional strategies. These social mechanisms direct change to the macroculture through collective sanctions that damage the perpetrators reputation and restrict access to network opportunities. In essence, perpetrators become toxic assets that Hollywood avoids and this avoidance is similar to economic sanctions that can deter sexual harassment.

The article is based on 20 in-depth interviews with women professionals conducted for a more comprehensive study focusing on gender roles within the film and television industry in Turkey. This study examines the career possibilities for women, the experience of being a woman working in television and cinema, and the working environment, including work-life balance issues, experiences of discrimination and experiences of sexism. The hypothesis of this study is that film industry is male-dominated, and women have to struggle to be able to prove themselves in this industry in the 21st century in Turkey, where the position of women is made even more difficult by the gender role codes and the structure of Turkish society.

The article is based on 20 in-depth interviews with women professionals conducted for a more comprehensive study focusing on gender roles within the film and television industry in Turkey. This study examines the career possibilities for women, the experience of being a woman working in television and cinema, and the working environment, including work-life balance issues, experiences of discrimination and experiences of sexism. The hypothesis of this study is that film industry is male-dominated, and women have to struggle to be able to prove themselves in this industry in the 21st century in Turkey, where the position of women is made even more difficult by the gender role codes and the structure of Turkish society.

Abstract This article investigates discussions about gender, quality and equality in Danish film and television in the 2010s. Contrary to Sweden, where gender diversity has been part of public debate and formal screen policy since the 2000s, there was little discussion of gender in the Danish screen industry until the Danish Film Institute (DFI) began focusing on diversity as a priority area before the Film Strategy for 2015–18. The article analyses how both DFI and industry players have continuously argued against gender quotas, instead opting for soft measures such as ‘gender declarations’ and initiatives to raise awareness. One of these initiatives was a manifesto, ManusFestet, that used humour to raise questions about gender representation on-screen. The article discusses how a balance between hard facts and soft measures seems to be experienced as a constructive way forward, as long as this combination does in fact facilitate the intended change.

The economic, social and cultural contributions of the creative industries are essential elements of many societies and their governments’ policies. However, there is growing evidence that precarity, competition and lack of regulation within these industries is exacerbating inequalities with respect to gender, race and class. With a focus on gender and sexual harassment among female workers, this study involved 32 in-depth interviews with women working in the Netherlands’ creative industries. Data were analyzed using content analysis. Findings suggest that sexual harassment is prevalent, and many women considered it to be part of their occupational culture and career advancement. Four factors influenced this phenomenon: competition for work; industry culture; gendered power relations; and the importance of informal networks. Implications include the need for a climate of non-tolerance, sector-specific research and guidelines, sensitivity training and further work with unions and professional associations to provide worker protection strategies traditionally undertaken by organizations. The article concludes that effective sexual harassment prevention requires action at the individual, educational, sectoral and governmental levels, beginning with public conversations to convey the message that sexual harassment is never acceptable.