4 billion women. As your finger hovers over the “Next” button on Netflix, their faces become a singular blur, planted in the stands beside the protagonist, who is unquestionably a male. You see them in the background of thumbnails, cheering the men on. You see them on podiums, a splash of acknowledgment to keep up with the times, but never with gold hung around their necks. You see them close to, but never at, the center. As you start another witty-dialogue-filled detective show, or another sitcom with a struggling father, you see troubled, raunchy, bold and cowardly men in a variety of spaces that seem entirely theirs to explore. The women, meanwhile, remain women first, and their mold of narrative freedom is rarely granted the comfort to move around next to men.
Recent discourse surrounding queer media has reignited this tension. Why do male-centered narratives — whether heterosexual or gay — continue to dominate acclaim, ratings and renewal decisions, while stories centered on women struggle for the same longevity? Shows such as “Heated Rivalry” revolving around the budding romance between two hockey players have earned high ratings. However, their queer counterparts, such as “Pluribus,” which follows the story of a queer woman left to deal with the aftermath of everyone around her getting fused into a hivemind, were quicker to be shot down in terms of ratings. Thus, users have begun to speculate that the contrast is due to the gender of the protagonist.
This discourse echoes a long-studied trend — even as women rise to the screen, men still continue to outnumber women in narrative emphasis as well as audience reception. It is a pattern that is deeply entrenched in the entertainment industry, with research from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film claiming that women hold only 35% of speaking roles in top-grossing films, a number that continues to decline.
This disparity, however, extends beyond numbers — character behavior within narratives further complicates the issue. Female characters who challenge the path of a male lead, such as Skyler White from “Breaking Bad,” face backlash and are punished by audiences for asserting independence. This reflects a culture where male transgression is rewarded while women disrupting male agency are labeled obstructive or unlikable. The same follows for Carol Sturka, the main character of “Pluribus,” who is characterized as an independent and assertive woman, but portrayed as reclusive and emotionally stunted. Her qualities, which might have been found likable in a male character — proven by the variety of media covering this personality type — were largely deemed unlikeable in critic reviews.
Looking more closely at LGBTQ+ representation, it becomes obvious that male-centric storytelling is not just a quirk — it is structured. Across genres, male protagonists are more likely to receive complex character arcs, moral ambiguity and narrative space. Analysis of character distribution in older screenings showed roughly 72% of LGBTQ+ characters as male, according to the University of Southern California’s Annenberg. This has helped elevate gay stories into mainstream calendars and award seasons, paving a way for representation that still remains exclusive to men.
Could it be that male-led stories are simply more popular? Some argue that this difference in popularity is due to consumer taste, and male narratives dominate the media for no meaningful purpose, apart from being enjoyed more. However, this reasoning overlooks how visibility begets popularity. When women-led shows are constantly shut down after receiving smaller marketing budgets, shorter renewals and less promotional backing, the problem makes a case for itself. Platforms such as Netflix heavily promote tentpole shows with marketable leads that align with industry tropes and archetypes, while stories revolving around women face greater barriers in regards to visibility — even when the creative teams behind them are established and respected. Lesbian representation has historically faced erasure trends echoing phenomena like the “Dead Lesbian Syndrome” where lesbian characters are killed off disproportionately. Queer women’s stories are often narratives that are stabilized in niche viewership or streaming spaces with limited renewals.
If the media shapes the idea of who matters and deserves a spotlight, it inherently reshapes what stories feel possible for audiences to see. While women are becoming more visible in films compared to the bar set by standards a few decades back, they are still far less likely to be the central driving force of a story, receive equal marketing support as their male counterparts or even survive for multiple seasons on screen. Therefore, women-centric stories deserve multi-season investment and narrative freedom as well as the space to be imperfect. It is time to raise the bar and pan the camera to a different angle, as 4 billion women deserve more than just the margins of the story.
