Another week another couple of announcements re work Meghan and Harry are doing. Let's see if posters can park their usual sentiments about the people involved to instead engage on the content and cause being discussed, as it should be quite relevant for a site called "Mumsnet"... (here's hope for you!)
So, one day before Meghan appears on a keynote panel at SXSW, her and Geena Davis (and Moms First, a longtime charity partner of the Archewell Foundation) have launched a report to raise awareness about the ways television depicts characters who are mothers.
"On Thursday, Moms First and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media shared the results of a study that shows how those portrayals don’t always reflect reality, and argues that a change is necessary if we want to shift public attitudes and policy. The study, funded by the Archewell Foundation, found that though TV moms have become slightly more diverse, they are still underrepresented as earners and are still largely young, white, and thin. In 2022, when a couple with kids under 18 had a clear breadwinner, they were male 86.5% of the time. The study found that childcare and the realities of keeping a house running are largely erased.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Davis says she was surprised by how “dated” the various portrayals of TV moms seemed. “The representation of motherhood seemed like such a throwback,” she says. “It didn’t reflect modern reality anywhere near as closely as I had hoped or imagined.”
In a statement, Meghan explained her reasoning for signing on to the project. “My past experience as an actress, and now today as a producer and mother, have amplified my belief in the critical importance of supporting women and moms both behind the lens and in front of it,” she said. “This report about the portrayal of mothers in entertainment highlights the gaps we need to fill to achieve true representation in the content we create and consume, and I’m honored to support this work through the Archewell Foundation.”
Davis has been working on issues of women’s representation since she founded the institute in 2004, based on the idea that presenting producers and film executives with the numbers about gender disparity in media could lead to tangible change. “Images have a profound impact on people’s perceptions of themselves and others, and therefore the images can be used to create good,” she says. “I saw that children’s movies and TV made specifically for kids seemed to have a huge gender disparity…. What if we’re training kids from the beginning to have unconscious gender bias by showing boys as more important and taking up more space in the world?”
more here, and link to report below:
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/meghan-duchess-of-sussex-geena-davis-moms-first-report