12 Days Of Giving Includes Geena Davis Institute!

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is one of the nonprofits involved in Google's 12 Days of Giving campaign this year! 

The institute is all about changing the face of children's programming, and making sure that there is gender balance in media geared toward kids under 12. 

Today is the 9th day of giving, and Google is encouraging donations to See Jane, a GDIGM program which advocates for better representation of girls in TV and the movies!

Though females make up half of the world's population, there is only one girl for every three boys in the media. Even when women are represented, their characters often conform to stereotypes that set unrealistic or negative expectations for young girls.

By participating in the 12 Days of Giving campaign, we can all help to even the playing field when it comes to females in the media!

Geena Davis also recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter, and let them in on two easy steps the industry can use to bring gender equality to film and TV!

For one, screenwriters can take a project they're already working on, and change characters' names to women's names.

"With one stroke you've created some colorful unstereotypical female characters that might turn out to be even more interesting now that they've had a gender switch," Davis explained.

Secondly, when television and film writers are describing a crowd, they should indicate that the crowd is 50% female.

"That may seem weird, but I promise you, somehow or other on the set that day the crowd will turn out to be 17 percent female otherwise," she said.

We love what the Geena Davis Instiute is doing for women in the media, and hope that being a part of this campaign will help them further their research even further!

Join us at Sweety High and tell us about the steps you take to create gender equality!