Now, Geena Davis Is Transforming Gender Diversity In Ad World

After spending years increasing gender diversity in Hollywood, actor Geena Davis is now working to include more women in advertising. The gender equality activist and founder of the 10-year-old Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is now working with ad agencies to talk about how they can change media to include more women.

In an interview with AdWeek, Davis talks about how she has partnered with brands in order to improve gender diversity in their ads. Ford and YouTube are some of the brands that she works with. She created inspirational videos with three YouTube stars under the #She’sGotDrive for Ford. Writer and director Yulin Kuang, pop artist Clara C and YouTube star Taryn Southern talk about how they pursued their artistic ambitions, and worked through early struggles in their careers.

"I think it’s a perfect slogan and metaphor. Obviously, she’s “got drive”—she drives cars—but she is forging her own destiny, creating her own future," says Davis.

Davis has partnered with Google to create the GD-IQ tool which helps analyse the content of ads and aggregate the data. Companies can analyse how much speaking time females get, how much screen time they get, and also how they are portrayed.

Some key finding from a study with the Institute’s partnership with J.Walter Thompson, shows that 53 per cent of women globally think that there is a lack of female role models in film and TV. Eighty per cent of women said that females should have a louder voice in influencing culture. The institute also found that the percentage of fictional women in the workforce is even lower than the one which exists in reality.

Also Read: Geena Davis launches film festival to promote gender diversity

Picture Credit: Alliance of Women Film Journalists