No Girls Allowed

Okay, I'll admit it. I loved having mostly boy friends. I had zero boyfriends, but all the guys were my friends anyways. We'd joke and toss around innuendos and flirt and then no one would actually date me. It was great. Honestly. Because it gave me good practice for life.

Film is considered a male-dominated field. Statistics showing the amount of women in film are a little bleak. Look here for crazy statistics. But seeing statistics about big, bad Boys' Clubs always makes me question things. Like, how many women are wanting to work in film? And out of those women, how many of them really want to be in more technical positions (gaffer, DP, editor, etc.)? Most of the girls in my film classes had to beat each other out to be producers or set designers on projects, with only a couple of select girls choosing more technical positions. And, the ones who did choose to focus on technical positions ended up either beating out guys who wanted it or working together with the guys.

Obviously, this is life and in class you can't just completely exclude a member of your class. But, I feel like the attitude can't be that much different. The girls wanted to make documentaries and, as shown in the infographic, adult women want to make documentaries a lot too and they want to produce. So my question is - how many girls really want to dive into the technical aspect of film? And how many of these girls are we scaring away by saying that it's a tough, male-dominated field? Maybe it wouldn't be so tough or guy-centric if girls just went out and became qualified and did it.

And, yes, I know there's lots of misogyny. I have had my fair share. I have been asked, "So are you competent?" After describing previous projects and classes. Never once has my fiance been asked that - not even by the same person that asked me. People question my competency frequently, whereas they will typically ask my fiance his opinion. This may be out of some kind of gender bias, it may be because he comes off more confident than me, it is likely a little bit of both.
But the same things can happen anywhere at any time. Whether I'm making coffee or making films, writing emails or writing screenplays, I will likely never escape it. But, if women like myself move into these male-dominated areas, maybe we could not only change the ratio but show to women and men alike that women can hold their own in these Boys' Clubs just as much as men can.