The Annenberg report offers some interesting insights into why this ‘hypersexualisation’ discrepancy is so marked. When a female producer is on board, female characters are much less likely to be depicted in sexually revealing clothing (26.4%, rather than 35.9%) or with nudity (25.1%, instead of 33.3%). So too, films that have at least one female screenwriter as part of the production team feature a higher percentage of girls and women in significant roles (34.8%) than teams that only have male screenwriters (25.9%). They note that female producers or writers may have been purposefully hired for “female-driven stories” that focus on areas more diverse than romance, or that female writers may “write what they know” and thus put women at the forefront of their narratives.
