Geena Davis was in Washington Thursday afternoon to talk to students at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business about her research initiative to help bring attention to the need for gender balance in media. The Academy Award-winning Davis, who prefers to be called an actor rather than an actress, started the nonprofit Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2004 and since then has been dedicated to educating and engaging people about gender inequality in the media industry. “No matter where you are, the image of one out of a group being a female looks normal and I think that would explain why, let’s say, on a board when they get to one or two women they feel like ‘OK, we’re done.’ Because that is normal,” said Davis.
“I think that can apply to tenured faculty, top law partners, certainly to Congress. Only 16 percent of Congress is women. So, what we need to do is … raise the consciousness of the people in the decision-making process so they actively think about having women,” she said.
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Davis admits that while she has not done much research on female political figures, it is an interesting area she would like to explore.
“I’m sure that Michele Bachmann’s wardrobe and makeup has been extensively discussed and studied. I’ve read some articles about how she doesn’t want to be photographed if she isn’t fully dressed, and I think there is a lot of progress left to be made there.”
