Women and Hollywood

Melissa Silverstein is the founder and editor of Women and Hollywood, one of the most respected sites for issues related to women and film as well as other areas of pop culture. Women and Hollywood educates, advocates, and agitates for gender parity across the entertainment industry.

She is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of The Athena Film Festival. The 4th annual festival will take place from February 6-9, 2014 at Barnard College in NYC.

Melissa recently published the first book from Women and Hollywood, In Her Voice: Women Directors Talk Directing, which is a compilation of over 40 interviews that have appeared on the site.

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Blog Roll

Guest Post: Wanted: Female Astronauts: Geena Davis Celebrates "Add Female Characters" Month at Third Symposium on Gender in the Media

Features

Did you know that November is Add Female Characters Month? It is according to Geena Davis, who took over the back page of Variety to declare it such. The ad ran on Tuesday, November 13, the same day that Davis hosted the Third Symposium on Gender in Media at the SLS Beverly Hills Hotel.

By Kim Adelman
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November 15, 2012 2:24 PM
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2 Comments

Features

Today I learned an important lesson which I probably already should have known. The people who care about all things Twilight -- the fans of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are intense. These people -- it seems they are mostly women - are about as intractable as the Israelis and the Palestinians.

By Melissa Silverstein
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September 10, 2012 5:41 PM
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10 Comments

Features

The media stoning of Kristen Stewart, of Twilight fame, has been going on for about four weeks now. About a month ago, she was pictured having a fling, which she called a “momentary indiscretion,” with the married director of Snow White and the Huntsman, Rupert Sanders. What she did was wrong, she apologized, and it seems as though she's been in hiding for a few weeks. She's been branded a “slut,” a “whore,” and a “trampire” mostly by women, but also by a couple famous men. It's all very disheartening to watch. Time and again, we get a chance, as a society, to prove we're not petty and spiteful and we fail miserably.

By Amy Theus
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September 4, 2012 12:27 PM
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71 Comments

Features

This past Sunday the NY Times Style section featured a piece about the how hard the culture is on celebrity moms. The piece started out with a personal story by its author, Janice Min, (the editorial director of the Hollywood Reporter) about how mortified she was that the women who give her her manicures in LA were shocked that her 4 month post partum body was not a pre delivery body.

By Melissa Silverstein
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August 22, 2012 12:06 PM
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0 Comments

News

What is it about young Hollywood women and their hair? A couple of years ago I wrote a piece about the reaction to Emma Watson's haircut that got page views for months and months. People were shocked that the young woman who was required to have her hair long for the Harry Potter movies would want to exhibit a sign of independence and closure from that chapter in her life by cutting her hair.

By Melissa Silverstein
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August 16, 2012 10:40 AM
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20 Comments

Features

If you've been under a rock for the last couple of days I am here to inform you that we can all calm down now because Jennifer Aniston has finally gotten engaged. If you haven't been under a rock, you have been inundated with hideously titled articles that make me want to cringe. CNN did a photo spread called Jennifer Aniston's Men and USA Today wondered Has Jennifer Finally Found Her Happy Ending? (Those are the only ones I read the headlines of before giving up.)

By Melissa Silverstein
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August 14, 2012 12:53 PM
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6 Comments

Features

Like many feminists, I have some problems with Cosmopolitan.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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August 14, 2012 11:46 AM
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1 Comment

News

Yesterday, the highest paid film actress, Kristen Stewart, -- she of Twilight fame -- released a very bizarre press release apologizing to her boyfriend and Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson for her indiscretion with her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders.

By Melissa Silverstein
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July 26, 2012 12:14 PM
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242 Comments

News

So sad to hear about the loss of Sally Ride. She made many young girls believe that they too could go to space. Here's some of the shit she had to go through when she first went to space. This is from her NY Times obit.

By Melissa Silverstein
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July 24, 2012 12:40 PM
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1 Comment

News

Sofia Vergara is the top earning actress on television.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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July 19, 2012 4:27 PM
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0 Comments

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