May 19, 2021
Article
Harvard Business Review Digital Articles

Measuring the Impact of #MeToo on Gender Equity in Hollywood

By: Hong Luo and Laurina Zhang

Format:Electronic

Abstract

The #MeToo movement has brought issues of sexual harassment and gender inequities to the forefront around the world. But how much of a tangible impact has it had on the experiences of women in the workplace? In this piece, the authors discuss their research that examined representation of women in Hollywood before and after the allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein in October 2017. They compared various representation metrics for films produced by production teams that had worked with Weinstein in the past with films whose teams had not worked with Weinstein, inferring that those who had been associated with Weinstein in the past would likely be more impacted by the movement. They found that production teams who had worked with Weinstein (and thus who were probably more impacted by the #MeToo movement) hired more female writers after October 2017, and those female writers were more likely to work on films with male protagonists and protagonists that defied traditional gender stereotypes. While this is a narrow dataset focused on just one industry, the authors argue based on these findings that the #MeToo movement has in fact made a significant, positive impact on the representation and support of women in the workplace.