ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 explores how the screen production work culture and the apparently neutral routines of film and television production actually serve to invisibly privilege men. Masculinist routines are observable in a number of ways. First, the perspective applied to content of screen production is normatively masculine, regardless of how many women are involved in decisions about content, even as senior editors or executive producers. Women routinely get channeled into or out of the production of this content based on presumptions about women’s interests. Second, the industry’s routine definitions and practices of narrative and direction, which appear ‘neutral’, are, on closer inspection, revealed as masculine. Third, even women’s physical appearance as well as their behavior are routinely promoted or punished depending on the extent to which they correlate with industry norms and expectations. As well as working through masculinist routines, women in television production are expected to subscribe to a work culture that values traditionally masculine practices of long working hours, a rigid separation of career and life, and a lack of workplace flexibility. For many women, production companies or broadcast organizations generally demand a level of availability that was often impossible for women to give because they were engaged in both career and care responsibilities.
