A New Study Shows Advertisements Are So Sexist, Men Get 7 Times as Many Speaking Roles as Women

It’s well known that women are underrepresented throughout society—hello, Hollywood’s lack of female-driven films and that persistent gender wage gap—and a new study courtesy of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media shows just how marginalized women are in yet another arena: advertising. The nonprofit research organization, founded by the Oscar-winning actress in 2004, partnered with marketing firm J. Walter Thompson to examine how women are presented in advertisements for a report titled “Unpacking Gender Bias in Advertising.” They presented their findings on Wednesday at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—a global communications festival, not to be confused with the annual film fest—and what they revealed was discouraging. Men, on average, got four times as much screen time as women and seven times as many speaking roles. Read More…