An extraordinary reminder, in support of our crowdfunder, from silent film historian Pamela Hutchinson that women have a) worked in the film industry since its inception, and b) that the same barriers to sustainable and sustaining careers remain #100Years on.
When I research the careers of women in early and silent film history, I often come to a dead end. Or rather their careers do. On top of any internal industry biases or lack of confidence, back in the day marriage and motherhood was a very efficient way to cut short the career of a talented actress or film-maker.
Things should be very different now, but those days don’t seem so remote. The legacy of an industry that has been male-dominated for too many decades is that film-makers are not expected to have parenting or caring duties to juggle with production work. The cost of childcare combined with inflexible work practices prohibits many parents and carers from continuing to make films.
