Time to End Discrimination Assumptions?

This post could be a follow-up to my analysis of the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano. Its genesis is, rather, a recent article in the New York Times about a meeting attended primarily by female playwrights to hear the results of a year-long research project on gender bias in the playwriting business. Female authors have long had a tough time getting their work staged and were sure their predicament was caused by gender discrimination.

Instead, the project revealed some surprises. Women artistic directors and literary managers are more to blame than their male counterparts. Female directors and managers react more favorably to screenplays written by men — sometimes to plays actually written by women with a male name substituted. Male directors and managers rated the plays equally between male and female authors.

The research project didn’t conclude that gender bias has ended. For example, plays and musicals on Broadway written by women are more profitable than those written by men, but producers routinely keep male-authored plays running longer, which makes no sense apart from lingering gender bias.

The big problem is that far more men submit scripts than women. That guarantees a big gender gap. According to the research project, women writers need to write more, and women artistic directors and literary managers need to be more fair to their own gender.

A female playwright responsible for the research project and sure that its results would support her long-standing complaint that the gender disparity in the theater is driven by men said: “One thing I have learned is not to make those assumptions anymore.” I wonder it it’s time for all of us to learn that.