ZAGREB, January 31, 2020 – Women are still unequally represented in the European audiovisual and media sectors, which makes the public promotion of gender equality and diversity extremely important, it was concluded at a European meeting on gender equality in the audiovisual sector in Zagreb on Thursday.
At the meeting, which took place in the Croatian Journalists Association (HND) offices, information mapping on gender equality in the AV sector was presented and conducted, and good practices identified so far were described.
The results of a research project were also partially presented. The project lasted for two years and was conducted in association with various organisations, including the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF), the European Audiovisual Production (CEPI), the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Actors (FIA).
According to data presented at the meeting, only 24% of all radio, television, and newspaper reports published in 2015 worldwide were about women, in 2014 female journalists received three times as many offensive comments on Twitter as male journalists, and as many as two-thirds of female media workers were harassed or threatened on social media in 2018.
The situation in the audio-visual sector is, unfortunately, not good, as far as gender equality is concerned. However, we can see some improvement over the last two or three years, as well as a considerable rise in hiring female directors, producers, and screen writers, said Dearbhal Murphy from the International Federation of Actors, who presented the project.
At the panel, members of the Croatian audiovisual sector presented data on women as audiovisual authors in Croatia, and pointed out the small percentage of women working on film and TV series sets.
Director Katarina Zrinka Matijević presented data on the participation of women in Croatian film making from 1990 to 2018, according to which only 7% of films made in the period were directed by women, and women composed only 2.7% of soundtracks, while they were much more represented in production (23.6% -26%), and they played the most important role in costume design (94.2%).
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