Overview

This research investigated the impact of policies designed to improve the representation and support of women in key creative roles in theatre over the past three decades.

This report was commissioned in July 2011 to bring the research on the issue of women in creative leadership in Australia up to the present day, and provide a basis for the sector to discuss these issues and to reach agreement on some strategies to address the situation. It gathers together quantitative and qualitative information on the continuing gender disparities, and attempts to identify structural barriers and potential levers for addressing entrenched inequalities.

After concerted policy and strategy interventions in the 1980s through to the mid-1990s, the issue of gender equality in creative leadership in the theatre sector largely fell off the policy agenda until December 2009, when a media storm erupted and created momentum for change in the form of new networks, events and debates.