Only one in 3 of Hollywood’s speaking parts go to women

SEXISM remains rife in Hollywood with women given far fewer roles than men in leading films, research found.

Women had less than a third of the speaking parts in the 700 highest grossing films from 2007 to 2014.

The researchers also found little sign of improvement – just a fifth of last year’s top 100 films had a female lead – the same proportion as 2007.

Hollywood has been forced to face the issue of unequal pay for women a number of times this year already.

At the Academy Awards Patricia Arquette used her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress to call for equal pay in Hollywood to applause from Meryl Streep and other A-list women. Leaked Sony emails revealed that Jennifer Law- rence was getting paid less than her male co-stars including on the hit film American Hustle. After an outcry it emerged she would be paid £12.7million for her new film Passengers, almost double that of co-star Chris Pratt.

Lead author Dr Stacy Smith, of the Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California, said: ‘It is clear that no progress has been made either on screen or behind the camera when it comes to representing reality. This report reflects a dismal record of diversity’

Just two of last year’s top films were directed by women. And in the top 100 films of 2014 ‘no female actors over 45 years of age performed a lead or co-lead role’, the study said.