Unscientific Study Says: We Love War Stories About Men. Undivided Asks: Why Not Women? By Amy Madsen

Most days it feels like there is little the world population agrees upon. One potential exception to this overused, albeit true cliché: I've long suspected that regardless of country or culture, war is considered a male arena where women play a supporting role, at best.

To unscientifically test my theory, I reached out to 143 members of my family, friends and friends of friends. I devised a simple word association survey, asking individuals to write down the first word that pops into their heads when they read: "war", "peace", "security" and "notable war figure". I was disappointed, yet not surprised, when only 4% of respondents named a female war figure. I was doubly disappointed when I crunched the numbers and realized women named women, at the same low rate as men named women. The most popular response was Hitler, followed by George Washington and George Patton. In case you're wondering what 6 women were named, they include: Margaret Thatcher, Rosie the Riveter, Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, my co-founder Naomi Schware (I'm suspicious this came from her sister) and Cleopatra (courtesy of my then 9-year old daughter).

Looking around online, I wondered what else I could unscientifically analyze to test my beliefs. Then I found a Rotten Tomatoes article titled, "100 Best War Movies of All Time". Perfect.

I made a spreadsheet tracking the title of the film, the director and the top 4 billed actors. Not surprisingly, 97 of the "top 100" war movies were directed by men. Kathryn Bigelow made the list twice with Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker. The only other featured female storyteller was Talya Lavie of Zero Motivation.

Almost all of the films (94%) had male headliners, and well over half (61%) didn't feature any female actors in their top four billed roles. Taking a closer look at the six films with females in the top spot, I found: two were love-interests, two were comedic roles, meaning only two portrayed women in a "serious" way: Helen Mirren as a British Colonel in Eyes in the Sky, and Jessica Chastain as a CIA analyst in Zero Dark Thirty.

What does this all lead me to believe? Popular culture, as defined by Hollywood movies, loves war stories about men, told predominantly by men. Women are more typically cast as supporting love interests or for comedic relief (when I looked at all 400 top billed actors in the top 100 films, 60% of the women featured played a love interest).

But who, if anyone is to blame for this? Is it Hollywood for backing films that are more likely to make a profit? Or is it our history books for writing women out of our stories of conflict? Regardless, Undivided is starting a new campaign titled, "Why Not Women?" where we will present to you notable female war figures. If there are women you would like us to feature, please let us know by emailing: connect@womenundivided.org. Also, feel free to let me know if there are other unscientific studies you would like me to conduct.