Women Directors Deserve An Equal Playing Field

Rachel Feldman is a film and television director based out of Los Angeles with more than 30 years of experience and 75 credits in film and television, including ABC's The Rookie, CBS' Blue Bloods and Criminal Minds, and MGM's The Baxters. A former chair of the DGA Women's Steering Committee, Rachel is currently working on a political thrilled based on the life of equal-pay icon Lilly Ledbetter. 

Accomplished women commonly practice for their titles to be questioned as fraudulent. Dr. Jill Biden experienced this last week during the focus of a condescending Wall Street Journal piece. Michelle Obama took to Twitter and had the back of the upcoming First Lady. Women directors in the film industry often experience the same kind of frustrating disparagement. Well-known feature film directors toggle between directing movies and directing television without question, but the playing field is not equal for television films who desire a change into features; this is impacting women in particular because television is historically where the fewer opportunities have been. There is a deeply rooted belief that directors who work in television lack creativity and only know how to work within the constraints of a pre-established template, which are viewed as created by the "genius" who directed the pilot.

The truth is directing television today is challenging work that sharpens directors with exceptional skills, tremendous assets for filmmakers with the opportunity to define their own vision. The statistics for women directing in television has increased over 50% in the past several years, the statistics of women directing feature films is still under 5%. This leads us to question, why do women constantly need to prove themselves? What is our society gaining by shutting women out of opportunities? How can the narrative be changed?

President Obama's first piece of legislation was the Fair Pay Act, which was named after Lilly Ledbetter, a Goodyear Tire factory supervisor who had been cheated and taken advantaged of because of her sex. Lilly is a story of resilience,  tenacity, and how one woman - who was beaten down by one repressive patriarchy after another, gained the psychological fortitude to conquer injustice at tremendous personal costs. It's the story of a woman who knows her value, yet needed to prove it over and over again. Lilly follwed her victory with a memoir about her life titled, Grace and Grit. 

Rachel has found similarities within her career and Lilly's, which left her enthralled by the story with the desire to direct the film.