Female Actors in Movies

The role of women in movies hasn't been that big these past years. There is a paper on "Gender Inequality in 500 Popular Films: Examining On-Screen Portrayals and Behind-the-Scenes Employment Patterns in Motion Pictures Released between 2007-2012" by Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Marc Choueiti, Elizabeth Scofield, & Dr. Katherine Pieper.

Very early on they state:
Females are grossly underrepresented on screen in 2012 films. Out of 4,475 speaking characters on screen, only 28.4% are female. This translates into a ratio of 2.51 males to every 1 female on screen. 2012 reveals the lowest percentage of on-screen females (28.4%) across the 5-year sample. Only 6% of the top-grossing films in 2012 featured a balanced cast, or females in 45-54.9% of all speaking roles. Just over a quarter of all narrators (27.5%) are female.

Here is a nice summary Figure...

See also my earlier post here