At the movies

Are you interested in how women and girls are portrayed in the movies? And how often they appear - or fail to appear - as significant characters?

Can't wait to see the new Harry Potter movie - I have to admit to being a HP fan, almost as keen as my kids. I wonder whether Hermione will have a strong role in this film? One of the things I found disappointing about the very first movie (Sorcerer's Stone) is that a key moment showing Hermione's intelligence and importance - when she solves the logic puzzle - was missed out.

Last week I saw "Ocean's Thirteen". Not bad, an old-fashioned heist movie. I thought the character played by Ellen Barkin was pretty interesting: good to see an older woman in a role where she is being authoritative as well as sexy (and not at all mumsy).

On the way into the movies, I took in posters for "The Comebacks" and "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry". Neither are in the theaters here yet, so I haven't seen them, but the posters made me worried about them! "The Comebacks" showed a sexily clad woman bending over and peeping over her shoulder (oh come on you advertising geniuses, this is really lazy - and don't tell me it's some kind of humorous retro reference to Playboy) while I suspected that the Chuck/Larry film could just be cringe-worthy.... Well, we'll have to see.

The organization See Jane has produced some interesting work on how often G rated movies have female protagonists. Turns out that 75% of characters are male; and male and female characters are very likely to be portrayed in a gender-stereotyped way. Males are more likely to be aggressive, and less likely to be parents. Stereotypes about non-whites also abound, plus they are often the villains - and girls and non-whites are more likely to be comic relief or side-kicks. Take a look at the See Jane website for more info - www.seejane.org

Happy Birthday Title IX

Title IX turned 35 years old on June 23rd. Happy Birthday! Title IX is a short statute which bans sex discrimination in any federally-funded education program. It applies to any part of federally-funded education, but has been most successfully and widely been put to use in the field of athletics: for example, since 1972, the number of female high school athletes has increased from about 290,000 to 2.9 million. Much of that increase can be directly attributed to the impact and influence of Title IX.

To read a short report issued by the Stanford Center on Ethics on the current status of Title IX in athletics, go to this link: http://ethics.stanford.edu/titleixconference/