Before I started blogging and looking more closely at what I read, I read so many more men authors than women. Now, after five years, I feel like my numbers are closer, maybe even . The same thing has happened these last few years as I’ve kept track of the new-to-me movies I watch. As I put the movie poster on my monthly post it seems so obvious that men dominate my movie watching as well. I always prepare my 5 word movie reviews as I watch them and last month after I added my first three I noticed that women were on all three and two only had women. It shouldn’t have struck me, but it did so I went back to take a look at the other movies I’ve watched this year and this was the breakdown of movie posters of the 48 movies I watched before October
23 had men only
2 had women only (and one was a girl, Les Mis)
17 were mixed with men and women
6 were other things (cartoons, no people)
Here are the movie posters of only gals that I’ve seen this year
I think that it’s sad that more women can’t lead a movie, well maybe Sandra Bullock by the looks of it. I like my alpha man fix just as much as anybody, but I think I can purposely choose more movies with leading women, just like I have done with authors. So, the last 2 movies I chose in October were ones featuring women. Maybe I’ll try to do a few months that I focus on one group or another. I’ve already gone boyish this month by seeing Ender’s Game, but I can offset that with Catching Fire, right?
How about you? Do you find yourself watching more male or female centered movies?
Stacy's Books 
Wow, I’ve never given it any thought. My wife and I see about 60 movies a year. We don’t do much in the way of Marvel, Batman, Superman, etc. We prefer character-driven movies so are more likely to see a combination of men and women. If I can’t tell you which gender we see more of, then that must mean we see a lot of both. Right?
Even excluding superheroes, movies are dominated my men. Even recent character driven ones like The Prisoners, The Butler, Jobs…I thnk it’s good that you’ve not noticed a difference, but see what happens in the next few months now that you’re thinking about it 🙂
I hope this doesn’t affect what movies I see. I’ll be thinking about how gender-neutral my selections need to be! Okay, I’ll keep track and get back to you after the 1st of the year.
I’m chuckling because I never even gave this a thought. But I would guess that I watch more male-starred movies, probably because I think there are more of them. And often I see movies with my son, and of course he likes the ones jacked up on testosterone. I don’t have much patience for the flirty, fluffy girl-bonding movies honestly…the rom coms and such. I LOVED The Heat though!!! Now that is more my speed.
There are definitely more men movie stars so they must be the ones that sell the movie and I’m not complaining because I love my testosterone too 🙂 But it really doesn’t seem right that there aren’t more female dominated moves. Or maybe we’re just not watching them, Sandy? I don’t know.
What a thought provoking post. I do know men dominate most business so I’m not surprised to see this. I’m going to have to pay more attention to what I watch, read, and listen to.
I’m sure it won’t affect the majority of my choices, but it is something to try to think about more often than we do.
Have you heard of the Bechdel Test? It’s a super easy and simple way to see what if any women are featured in a film and how they interact with each other. Are there two women? No? Fail. Are there two women? Yes? Do they have a meaningful conversation with each other that is not about the men or men in general? Yes? Pass!
Women are highly underrepresented in all aspects of movie making. Producing, directing, writing, etc. It’s so sad. Even Pixar…most of those movies have male protagonists. I try to make a concerted effort to watch films done by women!
So glad you brought this up, Stacy!
I just went and looked up the Bechdel Test. Interesting. I know women are underrepresented in the film industry, but I was surprised at how skewed my own viewing was. I need to be a little more inclusive!
Good point. I read mostly books by women. I probably do the same thing for movies though I love really crazy ones like Hangover.