Indigenous women still underrepresented in TV and Film in Canada

By Andrea Smith

TORONTO— A new study by the organization, Women in View (WIV), shows women—and especially Indigenous women—are still vastly underrepresented in the television and film industry in Canada. Their study, Women in View on Screen, has been ongoing since 2010, with this being the fifth round of published results.

While the statistics haven’t shifted much over the years, this year there are some notable twists.

“Women in View just started counting…,” said Amber-Sekowan Daniels, general manager of Women in View, speaking about the humble beginning to the years of study. “The first year, we were looking at like 17% [women] in roles in writing and cinematography. We started tracking those numbers so we could start holding people accountable.”

The study this year looked at over 5,000 contracts, both in television between 2014 and 2017, and in film, between 2015 and 2017.

“Because Women in View has been tracking for so long, we have that consistent base to work from. But it’s all hard numbers… But we found a lot of interesting stories when we were looking at those numbers, and when we were looking at them in different ways,” she added.

One of the key findings in the study this year is that the gender of people hired by the creative leaders differs greatly whether it’s men or women in charge.  In the study, the creative leader is the showrunner. And when men are the showrunners in TV, the production team that is hired consists of 86% men, but when women are the showrunners, the production team ends up with at least 50% women. In the case of Indigenous women as showrunners, there is not only more gender equality, but the production team ends up being more diverse culturally, as well. When both a man and a woman were showrunners together in TV, the production team still had more women than just men showrunners hire, ending up with around 41% of the production team as women.

According to the study, the dynamic shifts a little with feature film productions. When women were showrunners in that field, women then comprised nearly 35% of the hired production team, compared to less than 20% women on the team when men were showrunners.

And the lowest statistic of all was the number of Indigenous women working in television altogether; it fell from 1% to 0% in 2017, with only 22 out of 3207 contracts going to Indigenous women in that area. It remained steady at 1% in film for 2017, with 12 out of 1637 film contracts going to Indigenous women.

Daniels herself knows this struggle all too well. Having recently left Manitoba to pursue dreams of working in TV in Toronto, she has been having a hard time breaking into the industry—exactly as the study indicates she would. Daniels can see the barriers faced by women clearly— barriers that are even more pronounced for Indigenous women.

WIV is seeking to not only study the problem, but help remedy it, said Daniels. They offer consultations and training seminars to teach how to obtain more gender balance for those in charge of hiring.  And they’ve also started running what they call “Five in Focus,” which sees them bring together talented women with directors, so the director’s can hear the ideas women have to pitch. It’s a way of exposing the directors to people they might not otherwise have a chance to meet, said Daniels.

“We found a lot of people were busy… People were very busy… And not everyone who’s in a decision-making role has time to see grassroots talent and go to every film festival. But a lot of people were very receptive to the talent. They just had to be aware of it… You don’t know, who you don’t know,” she said.

The WIV study also outlines some major steps hiring managers can take to bring more women on board in film and television with their Five Steps to 50:50:

1. Commit 50% of creative leadership roles to women.
2. Commit to the inclusion of women of colour and Indigenous women.
3. Set concrete measurable targets, make them public and report on the results.
4. Open the doors to new and under-represented talent.
5. Balance funding across men and women.

“We are proud to be able to share extensive data on the participation of women of colour and Indigenous women throughout this report,” said Tracey Deer, Board Chair of Women in View. “Although the numbers are dreadful, they provide us with a baseline and we can work from here to improve them.”

More information, along with a link to the full study, can be found here.