Projects

New EuroFIA Project 2009 : “Engendering Change: Strategies to Combat Gender Stereotypes and Promote Equal Opportunities for Performers in Theatre, Film and Television in Europe”

Origin of this project
This Euro-FIA project follows on from the 2008 research project, “Changing gender portrayal: Promoting employment opportunities for women in the performing arts”. It also deals with the issue of gender equality, focusing on the portrayal of women in film, television and theatre in Europe and on equal opportunities for women performers. The research conclusions of our previous project highlighted several important problems for actresses such as shorter careers; lower incomes and smaller number and variety of roles, all of which led women performers to see their gender as disadvantageous in the world of the performing arts.

The research report “Age, Gender and Performer Employment in Europe” constitutes a first and unique resource on gender portrayal and its impact on the employment opportunities of performers in Europe. It is a valuable contribution to the Commission’s overall work on gender equality, equal work for equal pay and anti-discrimination. The positive reactions and responses we have received from both the European Parliament and the Council of Europe highlight that our report can have a real strategic use in decision-making and advocating for change. You can download a copy in the research section of our website..

Aims for this project
FIA has now successfully acquired European Commission funding for a new project, which will run until the summer of 2010, which aims to move from research to action. The new project will thus build on the foundations laid by the first one and will seek to identify clear strategic actions to engender change across the EU. The focus will be on coming up with strategies, both at the level of performers’ unions themselves and at the level of political advocacy, at national and EU level. These strategies, examples and good practices will be intended to empower and support performers’ unions to undertake action on this issue. Equally they can serve as a blueprint providing examples of possible effective political action that decision-makers can pursue. They will also highlight ways in which the industry can work from within to change gender portrayal and do away with stereotyping. More precisely, our main objectives with this project are:

• To capitalise and build upon the foundations laid in the first EuroFIA project on Gender Portrayal and use the momentum and network that have been developed to have a real impact on this issue;
• To share and exchange good practice on combating gender stereotypes and improving representation of women in film, television and theatre in Europe;
• To draw together these ideas and good practices in order to come up with targeted strategic recommendations for performers’ unions, policy-makers and stakeholders in the industry on how to take action on gender portrayal and equal opportunities. The aim would be to provide examples of both hard (such as, for example, quotas and funding criteria) and soft approaches (such as, for example, developing cultural projects or applying a gender check list approach in cultural institutions) gleaned from across the EU and to analyse what works and how. This in turn would inform and empower different relevant actors on how to develop effective strategic approaches to gender equality in their work and structures;
• To develop and renew the commitment to gender equality in the workers’ organisations that are members of EuroFIA through the development and adoption of a FIA charter on gender to which its members should adhere;
• To feedback the work and findings into the work carried out at European level, through the sectoral social dialogue committees on live performance and audiovisual and through contact and cooperation with the Commission and the Parliament in their work in this area;
• To continue to develop strategic partnerships with other civil society actors active in this area.

Means to achieve this project: regional seminars and final conference
In order to carry out all these goals we decided to organize this work through five different regional seminars, bringing together representatives from the sector and relevant political and civil society actors, as well as performers themselves. A consultant will attend these five meetings and draw out and feedback the good practice identified, the recommendations made and any key ideas and suggestions developed, so that these can be drawn together in a handbook. The strategic recommendations emerging from the project will be developed on that basis. The findings will be shared and discussed throughout the whole European network of FIA (EuroFIA) during the final conference to be organized in Brussels in May 2010.

More Information?
If you have further questions or would like to get involved in the events mentioned above, please call or email the FIA secretariat.

This project is supported by the European Commission

2008 Research Project on Gender Portrayal and Employment Opportunities for Performers

“Changing gender portrayal: Promoting employment opportunities for women in the performing arts”

Introduction to the Project:
This project is now complete. It ran from September '07 to December '08. It was a EuroFIA project. It received funding from the European Commission in 2007, within the overall context of the European Year of Equal Opportunities for all. The portrayal of women and men in theatre, television and film have a significant impact not only on gender image and perception by the public, but also on the employment opportunities of performers. It is a fact that women are less represented than men in ALL media. A comparative European study of male and female participation in television programmes carried out in Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden (in the resources section below) showed clear signs of unequal and stereotypical gender representation. For this project, it was decided to address the discrimination issue from the perspective of older female performers, whose employment opportunities are limited because of their gender and age. The European Commission acknowledged that these are grounds for discrimination that should be addressed at European level. Performers’ trade unions have a crucial role in combating gender stereotypes, through close and on-going cooperation with all media and entertainment institutions. The results of such cooperation should contribute to presenting a realistic picture of the skills and potential of women in modern society and avoid further portrayal of women in a degrading, offensive or non-realistic manner, in theatre and television, which are all medias with powerful educational vocation.

The main activities of the project were the organisation of two key events and the undertaking of an ambitious piece of research on gender portrayal and employment opportunities for performers in Europe.

Project Research - Questionnaire, Interviews, Report:
The research ran from March 2008 when the questionnaire was launched, to October 2008 when the final reserach report was completed. The research report was drawn up on the basis of the responses received.
Details are available in the Research Section.

Project Events:
The two key events of the project were the launching conference and the final conference. The launching conference took place in April 2008 in Riga, Latvia. The final conference took place in London in the Drill Hall Theatre on the 15-16 September 2008. Details regarding the conferences, as well as speeches, programmes etc. are available in the Meeting Section.

Resource Section on Gender Portrayal in the Performing Arts:
Within the framework of this European project, FIA has begun gathering existing resources on this topic together and has received contributions from several European countries. FIA will continue to bring these together in this web section and to make them available as a valuable resource for all members working on this issue, and as a useful complement to the research currently being undertaken. Your contributions to this section are also most welcome. All documents and reports on this theme are available for download in the Resource Section.

  This project is supported by the European Commission

European project on the enlarged EU - 2005

The first part of the project aimed at informing FIA’s affiliates in the new EU member States about the significance and the impact of the EU instruments and policies of relevance to our sector, as well as raising their awareness about existing financial support programmes. A practical documentation pack was released during a first seminar organised in Nicosia on February 2005, including a list and short description of the relevant EU funding programmes, with links to related web pages. This data also includes an account of the major EU legal instruments that are related to the entertainment sector.

The second part of the project focused on the organisational and managerial training of performers’ unions, as well as on collective bargaining best practices. This training was delivered during a seminar held in Prague - Czech Republic – in September 2005, and was based on the experience of FIA members from the old EU member States.
A short overview of major sections of collective agreements in theatre, television and cinema production - as well as model language – provided adequate support during the seminar.

Project's documentation pack Overview of main elements of a collective agreement

© 2005 FIA