Gender Bias In Playwriting

I was driving home from a meeting with Spiro at the Lyric, trying to get something going for next year, when I heard this fascinating little piece on Talk of the Nation. 

There's also a NY Times article on it today.

This Economics PhD student, Emily Glassberg Sands, did a study on gender bias in the playwrighting business, and found, not too surprisingly, that there is some.  But some of the results were really interesting.  

When she sent sample scripts to Artistic Directors and Literary Managers, the same script, but half with a male nom de plume and half with a female one.  The same script scored higher, particularly on its likelihood for success, when they thought it was written by a man.  The funny thing, though, is that this bias was primarily manifested by the female ADs and Lit managers.

Another thing she found out was that respondents found the same female characters more sympathetic when they thought the play was written by a man.  What to make of that? 

I felt good karma, because I had just been pitching two plays I want to do to Spiro, and they're both by female playwrights.  Let's hope it comes around.