I suspect that too many producers and development executives, because of their own prejudices (perhaps subconscious and unacknowledged), are uncomfortable giving notes to women. They may have been socialized from their youth to avoid giving direct criticism to women out of fear of "hurting their feelings." Perhaps, one part of the solution is, through education, peer pressure, mentoring, etc., to push these people to acknowledge their emotions, understand that they're irrational, and stop behaving that way.

I find it easy to conclude system sexism. But the absence of good data makes it not yet possible (not impossible) to identify the specific problems and solutions. The following data sets are still required: 1) Number of women writing and trying to sell a spec script. Think, Sexism as barriers to entry. 2) Number of spec scripts sold by writers who already have a 'foothold' in the industry, by gender. Think, Sexism as being in the club and getting to stay in the club. 3) The socio-economic demographic of those 'trying to get into the business' by selling a spec, broken down by gender. To put it another way if women have less money after graduation, children to look after and earn less from their 'other job' staying the journey of a screen-writer (say 4-5 years after graduation to see if you've got what it takes) will be tougher for those from more disadvantaged economic groups. Think, do women have to give up quicker and get a 'real job' to pay the rent. 4) The socio-economic demographic and gender of those buying spec scripts. 5) Amount of money women get from selling a spec as compared to men. Oh yeah. That's when it gets real.

Interesting point, Matthew, likely with merit. I did a roundtable with 6 women writers which I'll be sharing soon on the blog and they had some comments along this line.

Good points, Michael, however the nature of spec script deals is such we'll never know these answers. All I can track are reported information and even that can be sketchy at times. That said, these numbers, combined with surveys and assessments by a variety of agencies which DO provide more objective facts and figures align with what is a systemic issue. For example, when the number of women directors of studio movies is less than 10%, there's an issue.