Academy Award-winning actor Geena Davis is a pioneering advocate for women and girls. In 2004, she founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a research-based organization working from within the entertainment industry to improve gender balance, reduce stereotyping, and create diverse female characters in media targeting children 11 and under.

 

Believing that data has the power to drive social change, Davis’ Institute conducts research to demonstrate the absence of diverse female characters in entertainment media. It uses this research to educate the people making children’s programming, and works with them to feature more diverse girls and women in future content. Davis wants to see a dramatic improvement in the number of diverse, aspirational females onscreen to support young female viewers’ optimal development and potential. Her motto is: “If she can see it, she can be it.”