ERA5050 wins an award

On 1st March, stars of theatre gathered at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London’s West End for the 20th annual What’sOnStage Awards, broadcast live on BBC Radio 2. During the event, the Equity Award for Services to Theatre was awarded to ERA5050, a movement that campaigns to see women represented on screen, in television and in theatre in equal numbers to men.

Karin Paynter, Director of ERA5050 said:

We were absolutely over the moon to be recognised for our work campaigning for gender parity at the WhatsOnStage awards.

Our campaign, officially launched in 2018 at BAFTA by Olivia Colman to a 200 strong audience, champions a 50:50 gender balance on British stage and screen across annual programmes of content and we are strategic partners with TimesUp UK, Equity and Spotlight as well as the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in the US.

The simple badge I designed in 2016 has now been worn by over 5000 people, from high profile actors to aspiring students, agents and casting directors to show their support for change and we are working with theatres and production companies to try and find simple solutions to this issue.

Overall, film, television and theatre are showing us a world in which women have less value, agency and presence than men. It is well documented now, how the media influences young lives. For example, the Hunger Games films caused the number of girls taking up archery to double. The BBC series Call The Midwife sparked a 17% surge in UCAS applications to midwifery courses. A third of undergraduates on forensic science courses say that they were inspired to apply by TV shows like CSI and Silent Witness.

The unequal representation of women in media has an impact not just on the entertainment industry but on our own too and I am passionate about creating equality both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, including in our board rooms and in our workplaces. My hope is that by creating balanced female representation on screen, we can create a better working environments for all and the days of bullying and harassment will be in the past.

Through our work at ERA5050, we have created a new positive model for change that can include both women and men, not just in the entertainment industry but across the arts and all other areas of work and I am excited to see how our 50:50 work will impact the jewellery industry in the future.