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Ann, I think you're right that the Times article on gender bias in the theater may have leaned a bit hard on the women-keeping-their-sisters-down aspect of the original study. (I also think you're right that the best thing we can do, as audience members, is actually get out there and support quality work by buying tickets.)
But I also think there are elements of this study that should give us pause. When Sands sent those scripts out to producers, directors, and literary managers, she found that both female and male respondents were likely to rate a play with a female writer's name attached to be of lower quality—not just less economically viable, but actually of lower artistic merit—than the same script with a man's name attached ... (Read more at DoubleX.com.)
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It’s a catchy, catty angle, that’s for sure: An article in today’s New York Times about a recent study of potential gender bias in Broadway theater opens by suggesting that women playwrights do indeed have more trouble getting their work produced than men do—and that female artistic directors, producers, and literary managers “are the ones to blame.” That’s the conclusion purportedly arrived at by a precocious female Princeton undergrad, who undertook the study for her senior thesis in economics, and who recently gave a presentation to a mostly-female audience of playwrights and producers.
If you read further, and check out the thesis itself, it’s clear Emily Glassberg Sands says no such thing ... (Read more at DoubleX.com.)
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