It's curious - historically directing has been a "man's job", and early in the industry the only two successful female directors had to either pose as macho or capitalize on the "mother" qualities. But there is still a hugely disproportionate amount of men directing and producing. At NYU - a school with about 60% of the freshman class female, the film and tv department has one woman for every three or four men. And the women in the course are - for the most part - not interested in directing or producing.

My question for anyone with an answer is, why? Even on these forums there seems to be many more distinctly male names than female ones.

Satisfy my curiosity - who among the regulars at SF.com are women, and what are your opinions on the imbalance?

My opinion is that "Women are smarter than Men, it's that simple." They know how to make better films than men. They know better than to make ****ty ass films for Hollywood and therefore don't have that many films get released. I mean how many female filmmakers can you all actually name? The only decently known one now is Sofia Coppola and she's onyl got her films released because of her family connections (pop's film company). Sadly, not enough women are making film, because I guarantee there would be better films, men are hacks. My favorite living and active filmmaker is Mary Harron, who made "I Shot Andy Warhol" and "American Psycho" which in my opinion are the two best films from the 90's and 00's (although her new film looks like crap). The only films female filmmakers get to make are crap like "Billy Maddison" and "Crossroads" so it's not like there are any opourtunities being provided. But I ultimately don't think it's important what gender the filmmaker is. it's important to remember that films aren't amde by colours or sex organs, but (contrary to popular belief) by people.

Film is a testosterone filled business with lots of competing egos. Women in general don't really have as big egos, and they probably find all the competition stupid and therefore don't pursue film. My fav woman directors are Antonia Bird and Mary Harron. Bronwen hughes directed Stander which is one of my fav pictures, but she also directed some sh*t. Katia Lund directed City of God & that is a great picture as well. I think most women probably see filmmakin as boring. They'd rather go shopping and dress provocatively and waste their money on clothes rather than camera equipment. There aren't really many creative female heroes to look up to.

It's a really interesting issue. Now, science tells us that there ARE psychological differences between the genders. Some are the result of expected and learned gender roles in our culture, others are physiologically based mental differences based on ancient specialization.

The genetic differences are minute, and include slightly more caring instincts, better perception of color and light, and better abilities to detect emotions and intent in other people in females. Us guys don't really have any mental differences which are positives in the modern world. But again, these differences are SO SLIGHT that I don't think they count.

The differences that do count are the social expectations and gender roles in society. After this whole big long post I'm sure everyone is expecting an answer, but I don't have one. In the past the industry has been extremely sexist, and still is to some degree. This probably discourages a portion of women from pursuing directing. I personally think women make great directors just as well as men do. They can use the social differences to an advantage, being in the minority as directors, and look at things from a perspective the guys don't use. A unique perspective, for the time being. If you look at stereotypes (yeah, yeah) it seems like guys and girls have just as many traits which would be good to have in a director. Different traits, but equally useful.

In the end, I think it all boils down to Hollywood's discrimination. We're seeing more and more female filmmakers lately, and that's a good sign.

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I mean how many female filmmakers can you all actually name?

Besides Sofia Coppola, I can name Amy Heckerling (never really impressed me, but does a decent job), Penelope Spheeris (Did one of my fav documentaries, The Decline of Western Civilization), and Jenna Fischer (she's only made one movie, but so far it's been well recieved and I can't wait to see it.)

I don't mind, let some chicks make movies.

I can't name any, because I never remember names, but the woman who did Whale Rider did an incredible job.

And we just saw "The Piano" which is marvellous.

Society's changing and becoming more embracing of women in powerful jobs - from what I see though, from film school, is that it's a craft less pursued by women than by men. Perry - you with your psychology (pshaw!) may be able to answer - is that an alpha-male thing? I have a bigger penis because I make movies? (It's true y'know! )

Even the various femmenist film movements were led in the mainstream by men.

But what I'm getting at is not the mainstream, but down on the itty bitty level of education. Maybe it's a cycle. Most (commercial) films are geared towards a youthful male audience, so perhaps the appeal in consumption translates into career appeal. I did some field-work in Tower Records a while ago on consumption habits, and found some interesting gender performances certainly suggesting that the males make the final purchasing decision, but this post is long enough.

This is a call for all female student film makers on SF.com!

The only two names I readily recognize are Sofia Coppola and Mary Harron. Both have done good work.

Personally, I don't know a single female who wants to direct or do anything behind the camera (besides make costumes -- I've had a couple of those offers -- and yeah, I'm serious). Then again, I don't know many filmmakers (in the flesh anyway) -- no more than five, I guess. From my experience, guys who are interested in film tell me all the ideas they have for their stupid movies and ask if I want to "help." Girls, meanwhile, ask if they can act in our own stupid movies. But again, maybe that's just the type of people I hang around; I'm a pretty superficial guy.

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Perry - you with your psychology (pshaw!) may be able to answer - is that an alpha-male thing? I have a bigger penis because I make movies? (It's true y'know! )

No, it doesn't work that way. Those emails that promise to do the same thing don't work either, just so you know.

It'd be really interesting to get some numbers on how many women are in film school right now, and how many were 10, 20 and 30 years ago.

"In the end, I think it all boils down to Hollywood's discrimination."

This is almost offensively determinist. It's impossible to say whether the recognized discrepancy between the proportion of females in the population (over half) and as directors (small, optimistically) is due to external or internal factors. Completely denying or diminishing any psychological or emotional differences is ridiculous, also.

The simple fact is that women do see things differently than males for the most part. That doesn't necessarily affect their performance as directors except that the dearth of women directors may be at least partially due to their own lack of attraction to the job.

Does it require a lot of ordering and autocratic behavior? It definitely can.

Put Agnieszka Holland on your list as well as Maya Deren...

Come on. Script girls? Hollywood was absurdly sexist until recently. Although, your point is definitely quite valid. A lot of it may be in the roles society trains men and women to fit into. The genetic differences don't affect psychology enough to be responsible, but the gender roles do.