Gender equity policy and visibility politics in the film and television industries

This article improves our understanding of visibility in relation to gender equity policy in the film and TV industries and beyond, where visibility is typically imagined to be positive or beneficial. Drawing on new empirical data from an internationally comparative study of gender equity policy in film and TV in the UK, Canada and Germany, we identify three imaginaries of visibility in relation to gender equity policies: visibility is imagined as evidencing problems, as providing a solution and as demonstrating action. We show that imagining visibility in these ways limits the scope of gender inequities considered for policy intervention and creates the potential for counterproductive unintended consequences. We argue that advocating for, developing and implementing effective gender equity policy requires challenging and complicating current ideas of how visibility works in policy making. As the visibility of marginalised groups is so central to gender equity, yet rarely approached critically by policy makers, this article makes an important contribution to the literature around equity in public policy broadly.