Every year on one fateful Sunday, the Academy hosts the annual Oscars, also called the Academy Awards. You may watch with your family on the couch, get updates from Instagram or even just hear about it through friends. However, it is certainly a big deal each March.
This award show started in 1929 as a way to honor different members of the film industry. It offers awards for the best actors, actresses, cinematographers, sound designers, costume designers, pictures, and, of course, Best Director.
This year was the 97th year of awards for the film industry. So far, only three women have won Best Director. Yes, you read that correctly. Three. How many have been nominated? Oh, don’t worry, way more. Nine!
The film industry has certainly evolved since the beginning of this award show, of course. Yet, in 97 years, shouldn’t we expect a bit more progress in such a popular industry?
The first time a woman was nominated for Best Director was back in 1977, the year of the 49th annual Oscars. While this may not seem that bad, it took the Academy 49 years to nominate a woman in this category. That means that for 49 consecutive years, the category was fully male-dominated.
After that nomination, it took 33 more years for a woman to finally win that award. Barbara Streisand awarded Kathryn Bigelow with an Oscar for her film “The Hurt Locker.” After opening the letter with the winner’s name, she acknowledged, “Well, the time has come.”
With all of this in consideration, I think it is important to ask the question: Are the Academy Awards sexist? About 46% of directors are female in 2026. With this in mind, we can also understand the gender bias in the early years of Hollywood, making recognition for female directors limited.
If you do the math, there have been a total of 260 directors nominated since the beginning of the Academy Awards. That equates to just around 3.4% of these nominated directors being female.
There have been women in the film industry ever since it began in the late seventeenth century. In fact, Alice Guy-Blaché was a female director in 1896, renowned for her filmmaking skills. So, if there were female directors to be awarded when the Oscars began, why did it take the Academy almost 50 years to nominate a female filmmaker?
There are around 10,000 members currently in the Academy, made up of 19 different artistic branches. As of 2026, 67% are male members. In 1929, 92% were male members. In nearly 100 years since the birth of the awards show, the female percentage in the Academy has only been raised by 25%.
When thinking of sexism, many people tend to overlook the artistic tragedies that women are afforded in the film industry. Female directors have been crafting significant films since the 1800s, and have only ever received nine nominations in total as a way to appreciate their enormous contributions to cinema and culture.
Without female directors, audiences would not have “American Psycho,” “Selma,” “Barbie,” “Clueless,” “Aftersun” or “Little Miss Sunshine.” The list could go on with all of the amazing films crafted by women, none of whom are recognized adequately for their work in the highest regard of the field.
If we want equality in the film industry, we need to start acknowledging all filmmakers, not just white men. Although I discussed the Academy’s issue with properly acknowledging female film directors, many other communities are also affected by the lack of diversity within the Oscars, such as African American directors as well.
It is time to acknowledge the artists responsible for their culturally significant work. Art flourishes in diversity and is amplified through different perspectives and journeys. Awards should be for all.