Breaking the glass ceiling
Thank you for your excellent reporting [“NBC Pushes to Get Female Directors,” Aug. 4] and for continuing to illuminate gender equity in Hollywood.
As a former chair of the DGA Women’s Steering Committee (who has directed more than 60 hours of episodic television), I would like to bring to the attention of our industry that there are more than 1,300 experienced, midcareer female directors in the guild. While it is true that only about 50 of these women are represented by agents, making the rest virtually invisible to those who hire, there are, in fact, hundreds of accomplished female directors, some with Emmys and Oscars, ready, willing and able to call “Action!”
Meryl Streep sponsors a program for midcareer, female writers, and the WGA has made enormous strides supporting the careers of their experienced female writers, but in the television director landscape the persistent belief that there are not enough trained directors is simply false, a huge injustice to women who have already been injured by decades of gender exclusion.
Training new directors is no doubt an important element in creating a wider talent pool, but there is a highly skilled labor force that already exists, ignored for too long. It’s high time for the industry to employ these accomplished women and for the agencies to do their part in representing them. We’re not hard to find.