Women who get internships don’t end up getting the job

In fall 2013, when my freshman class sat in Norris Cinema Theatre and officially began our tenure at the School of Cinematic Arts, we were told our education would span far past the reaches of our classrooms and into the real world. We would be crewing on sets, getting hands-on experience behind the camera and paving our way through the industry by acquiring internships. It was apparently a given that if you went to film school at USC, you would forge connections that made the thick city smog and impossible parking all worth it.

While my high school friends went off to various places across the nation for college, I came to USC as a native Angeleno fully prepared to spend another four years in the city in order to gain this lifelong network. With this mentality in mind, I was eager to start my working life, but had little idea of how to do it. Though Dean Elizabeth Daley tells SCA students that internships are just one of the many benefits to our school, we weren’t given many options for learning how to acquire them. The SCA job board — available exclusively to past and present SCA students — is one tool at our fingertips, but in the last two and a half years at interning, I’ve learned that most of the jobs that my friends and I have had didn’t come from there.

Luckily, my first foot into the entertainment industry’s door was at a small production company with a first look deal at Fox Studios. They were situated on the Fox lot in a tiny bungalow and had advertised a summer internship position on the aforementioned job board. I was one of the first to apply, and subsequently, one of the first to be hired once interviewed. It was exciting. They had amazing properties they were trying to develop, and a never-ending stream of interesting talent walking through the door (Stan Lee, anyone?). The company was headed by three men and one male assistant, and I found out later that only female interns were hired.

Now, that’s not to say that this statistic was in any way a conscious decision on behalf of the people that hired us. It actually turned out to be one of the most supportive and fun environments I’ve had the fortune to work in. But it did make me wonder.

My next internship was with a bigger production company in Hollywood, which I had the chance to interview for because of a friend who had interned there the previous semester. I was officially not depending on the SCA job board or USC anymore but was working purely from my own interpersonal skills and past experience. Later, I learned that I was one of five interns hired — only one of whom was a man. Again, this didn’t pose any trouble for me at that moment or after, but it was interesting.

Now I work for a male writer who I know purposefully hires women to work around him. Which is great because I love my job, and I know my gender wasn’t the only reason I was hired, though it helped. I’ve also interviewed (and been accepted to) other internships where the workforce was composed of mostly women. But considering this column is mostly centered on the disproportionately negative numbers of women and minorities working in the industry in high-ranking jobs, it made me wonder: Who are the jobs going to and how?

Most of the internships that I have held have been in the company of other female interns. If we’re told on the first day of school that the way to create our futures is through interning and meeting people, the boys at the school are faring, post-graduation, pretty well for their lack of experience. Several male colleagues I know haven’t, nor will, work an internship — either because they weren’t hired or they don’t want to. According to Intern Bridge, 77 percent of unpaid internships are awarded to women. These numbers, however, then radically shift after we all walk across that stage together, throw our caps into the sky and officially “enter the job market.” Articles published by The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film and New York Film Academy’s annual publication, among others, show that women are in the minority when it comes to jobs like producers, editors, cinematographers, writers and directors. This positive gender bias toward women begin and end in clerical positions such as internships and assistant positions — where the jobs are as menial as fielding calls, reading scripts and fetching coffee. Are we destined to maintain and perpetuate this type of Mad Men-esque position as our male counterparts skip the internship positions and jump right into working in the field, regardless of past experience or who’s right for the job?

Granted, I know my test group is small compared to the entirety of the industry, but it does make me think about the inherent inequality in film.

Minnie Schedeen is a junior majoring in cinematic arts and critical studies. Her column, “Film Fatale,” runs every Tuesday.