Wherefore art thou women on film?

Adventure is found through a journey with Peter Pan through the second star to the right and into Neverland. The Harry Potter series shows a boy who has suffered a great loss but finds a sense of community and purpose during his time at Hogwarts.

There's something all these cinematic stories have in common: they were all movies about men, men and men.

The earliest recording of female-less theatre is the Greek tragedies. It was abhorrent to think of a woman taking the stage. So, to save the people from such a danger, men would play both the male and female roles. How chivalrous! Even Shakespeare's plays when first performed at the Globe Theatre had an exclusively male cast. I find it very entertaining now to think of Romeo and Juliet performed that way.

When I think of female characters in films from my own childhood I can remember misbehaving Madeline, who couldn't even stay in two straight lines with her classmates at her Parisian boarding school, or Snow White, who needed seven dwarfs to help her before she found her prince charming.

I can't say for sure whether the lack of authentic female characters in films and television has affected how I am today. I'd like to think I turned out okay, but perhaps I would be a mathematician or a train driver if I was made to think through film that women could do those things too. Our inspiration is often taken from other people's stories, so it's important for women to also see inspirational women in film.

For a long time it seemed it was more likely to see men depicted as the brave heroes who can enact real change in their lives and communities. It makes me wonder what all the women in these fictional realities were doing while the men were out saving the world.

The level of importance given to women through film is reflected in the minds, cultures and behaviours of the audience who watch and enjoy them. Women are not only actors in the films I've recently seen but producers, directors and writers.