#NoGirlsAllowed

Welcome to the Oscars, an awards ceremony highlighting middle aged white men for their work in films this year. Just kidding...but not really. It's 2015, and females are still scarce in categories that are not Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, or Best Dressed. Kathyrn Bigelow won the award for best director in 2010, which was the first and only time a women has won that category. This year marked the 87th Oscars, yet there has only been one female ever to take home the Oscar. Is it because there hasn't been female directors worthy of the title?

Although Selma was up for best picture, most critics say it got snubbed for the other categories, including best director. The director of Selma was Ana DuVernay, an African American female. The problem isn't that there weren't enough "Oscar winning movies" directed by females, clearly, so what is it? I can't say I know why this is still happening in 2015, but I can guess a few reasons, one being that the majority of the Academy's Board of Governors (the people who chose who gets to vote) are male. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is 94% white, as of 2012, and 77% male. Do they believe that females aren't intelligent enough to vote on the best films of the year? In my opinion, this may be the case.

However, I noticed a couple of empowering moments for women during the awards show. During Patricia Arquette's acceptance speech for supporting actress, she said (regarding women), "It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America."  She received backlash for this quote, and responded by saying she "doesn't care if people are pissed. The truth is that wage inequality adversely effects women". I think this was an important message to spread, and even though some think it might not have been the right time for this speech, it did reach millions of people. I wonder if most of her critics are females or males, because I think there would be a different reaction depending on the gender of critics. 

Reese Witherspoon, an actress nominated in the Best Actress category, also shed light on how women are perceived at the awards show. While she was interviewed on the Red Carpet (social media's favorite part), she told viewers to #AskHerMore. Instead of just being asked who she was wearing and details about her appearance, she wanted to be asked about her work in her latest movie. Although I had never thought of this before she brought it up, I soon after realized how true it was. Women are always praised and questioned about what they are wearing on Red Carpets as well as tabloids and television shows (Fashion Police is dedicated to criticizing celebrities fashion). For male celebrities on red carpets, reporters might ask who they are wearing, but it's not as big of a conversation topic. They are more interested on their work in films and life outside of the wardrobe. 

In the future, I hope that we look past what women are wearing and focus more on what really matters, on the inside (I know, cheesy). Hopefully Arquette and Witherspoon are just the beginning to a new kind of awards show.