Where Do Women Stand in Creative Industry?

"Where Do Women Stand in the Creative Industry?" was the main question of the "Mind My Gender: Being A Woman in The Creative Industry" panel. The Panel was organized yesterday at Cairo Industry Days at the Cairo Opera House.

Moderated by the Head of Corporate Sustainability & Social Impact at MBC Group Mariam Farag, the session featured the Innovation and Advocacy specialist at UN Women Emad Karim, executive producer Hend Radwan, the casting director Marwa Gabriel, the actress Jamila Awad, the singer Dina El Wedidi and head of Cairo Industry Days Aliaa Zaki.

The participants discussed a number of sensitive topics related to the position of women in the cinema and music industries.

Radwan expressed that she has been working in this field for almost 20 years. The biggest problem the girl faces is self-confidence during job interviews.

She highlighted that girls need to be more self-confident and to believe in themselves. Furthermore, she attacked the concept of "stereotyping" the physical appearance of girls.

On her side, Awad explained the difference between women's position now and their position in Nasser's period.

She explained that people focused on very wrong information regarding women's participation in cinema and governmental jobs in the 1950s.

Women's films were supported by the government long years ago. Moreover, actresses got the recognition they hoped for.

Galal continued the same point Awad touched upon. She revealed that actresses who had feminist tendencies got the good scripts they needed.

Now, women's roles are not well scripted in film scenarios. Also, she wondered about the role of producers in supporting women.

On her behalf, Wadidi gave the audience more examples of women's marginalization in the music industry and how rising female musicians suffer. Then, she mentioned that in the past a figure like Umm Kalthoum was almost a leader. She managed in directing her team, her companions to establish a shining-bright career.

Next, Zaki discussed the concept of the "50/50" agreement. This agreement was adopted by the Cannes Film Festival to raise the percentage of women's participation in film festivals.

She added that CIFF is the first film festival in the middle east that adopted the agreement. She also expressed that there is a high percentage of women's participation at CIFF in different teams including the volunteers.

On his side, Karim reviewed a number of shocking statistics about the percentage of women's participation in the cinema industry globally.

There is a huge gap between men's and women's participation percentages for example only 20% of filmmakers are women. On the other hand, only 2% of videographers are women.

Therefore, he urged film producers and filmmakers to give creative and skilled women access to prove themselves in order to refute the stereotypical images regarding women.

He also expressed that the UN is organizing a campaign to raise the common's awareness against the concept of streotyping concepts

During the panel, other topics were discussed such as the wage gap between both genders, and the misrepresentation of women on social media.