Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director. This is no doubt a great accomplishment. People are starting to say that Kathryn Bigelow has broken a glass ceiling for women. However, it is all too easy for people to believe discrimination no longer exists when one exceptional individual rises to the top; like the “post-racial” world we supposedly live in now that Obama is in the White House. Kathryn Bigelow certainly conquered enormous challenges to win the Directing Prize, and will be a positive role model to aspiring female directors, and in her example, make it easier for them to dream about becoming directors. But the glass ceiling for women in the United States is far from being broken.
What is astonishing is that in a field like the arts, where women and girls are overrepresented, it’s taken this long for a woman to win the Oscar for Best Director. Why is that? Especially in a day and age where more girls in the United States are getting advanced degrees than boys[1]? Even if girls’ educational outcomes are much better than they have ever been, women are still in few positions of power. A mere 17% of Congressional seats and 14% of Fortune 500 board seats are held by women[2], and only 7% of top-grossing film directors were women in 2009[3].
What we need is more female leaders. As Linda Tarr-Whelan says in her new book Women Lead The Way, there is a leadership-gap between men and women that needs to be closed. Today, on International Women’s Day, I urge us to start with young women at home and invest in girls’ leadership development so that girls are not only getting degrees, but also gaining the tools necessary to be future leaders. And for those in the Bay Area, I invite you to check out these exceptional local girls leadership development programs. Until female leaders are the norm, not the Kathryn Bigelow exception, it is vital that we address girls’ unique challenges to becoming leaders.
[1]U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2002).
Digest of education statistics. (NCES 2002- 130). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
[2] Tarr-Whelan, L. (2009). Women Lead The Way. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
[3] Kornblut, A. (2009). Notes from the Cracked Ceiling. New York: Crown.
Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director. This is no doubt a great accomplishment. People are starting to say that Kathryn Bigelow has broken a glass ceiling for women. However, it is all too easy for people to believe discrimination no longer exists when one exceptional individual rises to the top; like the “post-racial” world we supposedly live in now that Obama is in the White House. Kathryn Bigelow certainly conquered enormous challenges to win the Directing Prize, and will be a positive role model to aspiring female directors, and in her example, make it easier for them to dream about becoming directors. But the glass ceiling for women in the United States is far from being broken.
What is astonishing is that in a field like the arts, where women and girls are overrepresented, it’s taken this long for a woman to win the Oscar for Best Director. Why is that? Especially in a day and age where more girls in the United States are getting advanced degrees than boys[1]? Even if girls’ educational outcomes are much better than they have ever been, women are still in few positions of power. A mere 17% of Congressional seats and 14% of Fortune 500 board seats are held by women[2], and only 7% of top-grossing film directors were women in 2009[3].
What we need is more female leaders. As Linda Tarr-Whelan says in her new book Women Lead The Way, there is a leadership-gap between men and women that needs to be closed. Today, on International Women’s Day, I urge us to start with young women at home and invest in girls’ leadership development so that girls are not only getting degrees, but also gaining the tools necessary to be future leaders. And for those in the Bay Area, I invite you to check out these exceptional local girls leadership development programs. Until female leaders are the norm, not the Kathryn Bigelow exception, it is vital that we address girls’ unique challenges to becoming leaders.
[1]U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2002). Digest of education statistics. (NCES 2002- 130). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
[2] Tarr-Whelan, L. (2009). Women Lead The Way. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
[3] Kornblut, A. (2009). Notes from the Cracked Ceiling. New York: Crown.