WGA West Inclusion & Equity Report Finds “Significant” Gains By Women & People Of Color

deadline.com:

Women and minority film and TV writers have made “significant” hiring gains since 2010, according to the WGA West’s latest Inclusion & Equity Report, which found that the percentage of screenwriters employed under the guild’s contract who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) has quadrupled over the past 11 years.According to the report, the percentage of working BIPOC screenwriters increased from only 5.2% in 2010 to 22.6% in 2020, which was up from 20.2% in the prior year.

Over that same timespan, the percentage of BIPOC staff TV writers nearly tripled – from 13.6% in 2010 to 37% in 2020, which was up from 35.3% the year before.Women writers have also made impressive gains.

According to the report, the percentage of women employed as screenwriters increased from 17.2% in 2010 to 29.6% in 2020, which was up from 26.5% in 2019.

Over that same time period, the percentage of women employed as TV staff writers has grown from 29.3% to 45.3%, which was up from 43.5% in 2019, and are now close to reaching parity with their male counterparts.See the full report here.“Our guild is getting more diverse,” said WGA West president Meredith Stiehm, vice president Michele Mulroney and secretary-treasurer Betsy Thomas in a recent communique to their members. “Historically underrepresented writers have made significant progress in hiring, which is reflected both in their percentage of new members and, particularly, at the entry levels of TV employment.” They noted, however, that “While women and BIPOC writers have made significant hiring progress over the last decade, men, and white men in particular, remain predominant in both the higher levels of TV employment and in features.” In television, the report found that white