Miss Representation Film Sources

Some statistics and facts featured in Miss Representation, with linked sources:

Media Consumption

• American teenagers spend 31 hours a week watching TV, 17 hours a week listening to music, 3 hours a week watching movies, 4 hours a week reading magazines, 10 hours a week online. That’s 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day.
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Representation

• The United States is 90th in the world in terms of women in national legislatures.
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• Women hold 17% of the seats in the House of Representatives (the equivalent body in Rwanda is 56.3% female).
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• Women may not achieve parity for 500 years.
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• Only 34 women have ever served as governors compared to 2319 men.
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• Women are merely 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs.
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• Women hold only 3% of clout positions in the mainstream media (telecommunications, entertainment, publishing and advertising).
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• Women comprise 7% of directors and 10% of film writers in the top 250 grossing films.
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UPDATE: In 2011, women comprised 18% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films. Source

Body Image

• 53% of 13 year old girls are unhappy with their bodies. That number increases to 78% by age 17.
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Self-Abuse

• 65% of American women and girls have disordered eating behavoir.

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• 17% of teens engage in cutting and self-injurious behavior.
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• Studies estimate that 13% to 25% of youth have some history of self-injury, such as cutting, and most studies show that cutting is more common with girls.

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• While girls are twice as likely to think about suicide, boys are four times more likely to actually die from it.
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Violence

• About 25% of girls will experience teen dating violence.
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• 25% of women are abused by a partner during their lifetime in the U.S.

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• 1 in 6 women are survivors of rape or attempted rape. 

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• 15% of rape survivors are under the age of 12.
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Teen Pregnancy

• The U.S. has the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world—twice as high as the UK, 4 times as high as Germany, and 8 times as high as Japan.
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Depression

• Rates of depression among women and young girls have doubled in the past ten years.
• Rates of depression are the same among boys and girls until puberty, but twice as many women are diagnosed as depressed post-puberty.
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Cosmetic Surgery

• The number of cosmetic surgical procedures performed on youth 18 or younger more than tripled from 1997 and 2007.
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• Among youth 18 and younger, liposuctions nearly quadrupled between 1997 and 2007 and breast augmentations increased nearly six-fold in the same 10-year period.
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