Thriving As A Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry: Elizabeth Kaiden and Nitza Wilon of The Writers Lab On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male Dominated Industry
An Interview With Ming Zhao
Respect people — especially women — including yourself. Always remember that most people have something to offer, if you listen. Our script reading process and then the Lab intensive itself is the embodiment of this. Sometimes it’s hard to absorb someone else’s POV, but doing so regularly makes your brain feel like it’s eating and growing.
In the United States in 2022, fields such as Aircraft piloting, Agriculture, Architecture, Construction, Finance, and Information technology, are still male-dominated industries. For a woman who is working in a male-dominated environment, what exactly does it take to thrive and succeed? In this interview series, we are talking to successful women who work in a Male-Dominated Industry who can share their stories and experiences about navigating work and life as strong women in a male-dominated industry. As a part of this series, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Elizabeth Kaiden and Nitza Wilon.
Elizabeth Kaiden and Nitza Wilon co-founded The Writers Lab in 2015 with Kyle Ann Stokes, and co-produce it with New York Women in Film & Television. TWL presents lab intensives and career incubation programs internationally via three programs based in the US, the UK & Ireland, and Europe. Elizabeth and Nitza are also founding partners of Women in the Script Trade (WIST), which offers individual script development to exceptional women screenwriters. WIST also ran script development labs in NY and LA for the Athena Film Festival from 2016 to 2020. Elizabeth previously served as Head of Development at Tangerine Entertainment, an independent production company that produces films directed by women, and has mentored at Stowe Story Labs. A former theater and film critic and graduate of Princeton and the Yale School of Drama, she lives in New York with her family. Nitza was an actor, journalist, and magazine and book editor prior to committing to script development for women. She earned her BA from the Annenberg School of Communications at UPenn and lives in New York City with her family.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?
Elizabeth Kaiden: I grew up in a traditional, very gendered world, and I went to an all-girls’ school that was very progressive. That’s where my feminism was forged in the 70’s and 80’s. Then, I started working in the New York theater world in the 90’s, studied dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, and became a theater and film critic. And that’s where my interest in scripts started. I love exploring form — how a story gains or loses meaning depending on how it’s conveyed.
Nitza Wilon: I always wanted to be a performer, but over time evolved from spoken stories to written stories. Appropriately, I majored in communications and spent many years editing and writing for magazines as a way to support my acting. In the years AC (after children), as I began to age and experience the world differently — specifically entertainment — I felt more compelled to address glaring imbalances. For myself and the many, many, many women I admire and adore.
Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?
NW: Only one story? I’ll try. If I were to distill the inciting incident, it would be a discussion Elizabeth and I had with a group of women that started with venting and ended with a plan to make waves. We all had come to storytelling via different paths but had all felt the barriers to publishing or production. Plus, we were inundated with the same stories over and over: stories by men, about men, and for men. Many millennia of those stories! We knew that it would be a big ship to turn around, and we were joining a long tradition of women working to turn that ship, but all we needed was one big first step. Which leads us to the next question…
EK: Well, it’s a cliche, but… I read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own in college and it really landed with me — the idea that the creative brain needs its own space. When I was home raising children and trying to write, I really felt it. At the time, I was still reviewing theater and film, and almost all of it was written by men and didn’t speak to my reality. I just wanted to bust it all wide open, hear new voices, think new thoughts. Then I started writing with Nitza and it all came together in our shared vision for space for women writers fed by critical, creative, collaborative energy.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
NW: First we reached out to New York Women in Film & Television, suggesting a collaboration. After that yes, we knew we were on to something. And then Meryl Streep stood up at the 2015 Academy Awards in support of Patricia Arquette’s statement about equal pay in Hollywood for women. The rest is herstory. We took a chance, wrote to Meryl Streep asking for her to support The Writers Lab. She said yes, and has said yes every year since. What a remarkable woman. The coda is that we got 3,500 submissions our first year — just in the US — which was yet another huge point of validation.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Answering as a team:
Collaborative Instincts: From the inception of TWL, we knew that there was power in numbers and varying points of view. We had the same goal, but were open to troubleshooting the best path to that goal, acknowledging the different skill sets, and who might do best with what task. Elizabeth and I are regularly acknowledging who does what well, almost task by task. We create divisions of labor based on that knowledge. And we ASK our colleagues what they do well and what they want to do. All of this goes hand in hand with self-awareness, a huge asset.
Communication Skills: Writing, speaking, listening. We both have deep backgrounds in language and belief in the power of the word. During our first discussion we established that, for film and TV to be more inclusive, the change had to originate from the storytellers, not the producers, directors, or performers.
Perspective: We are constantly reassessing, reaffirming, what the most important aspect of our work is. We examine how the zeitgeist is shifting, and our work’s place in it. We send each other articles, news, feedback from people we meet. That keeps us on our toes and ensures we’re staying relevant. It also helps us stay authentic, human, laughing.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you help articulate a few of the biggest obstacles or challenges you’ve had to overcome while working in a male-dominated industry?
There are External obstacles and Internal obstacles.
The former are abundantly clear: We are insisting to power players in a massive industry that they’ve been missing an opportunity by ignoring a massive audience with immense profit potential. But these power players, predominantly male, want to stick with a known entity, a commodity that has been for a hundred years an undisputed cash cow: Stories from a male gaze aimed at the wallets of males. Why fix what ain’t broke?
Not only are we trying to break through a wall of thinking that’s many hundreds of years old, we’re really messing with their heads by insisting that it’s OLDER women who have something to offer. We’re insisting that these gatekeepers squint very hard to see the heretofore invisible: Women over 40.
I’ll spend less time on the internal: imposter syndrome, lack of confidence, inertia. I’ll acknowledge them but not amplify them with too much airtime.
Can you share a few of the things you have done to gain acceptance among your male peers and the general work community? What did your female co-workers do? Can you share some stories or examples?
We work hard, and do good work. We set standards and meet them.
We listen without defensiveness. We’re proactive, smart, open, and admit knowledge gaps so we can keep building and strengthening. We also build partnerships with men- and women-led organizations and continue to knock on — and knock down — doors where we can. For example, in our very first year, we spoke with The Black List’s Franklin Leonard; Sundance’s Michelle Satter; Stowe’s David Rocchio; Marsha Seaman and Dana Weissman at the Writers Guild; and others working with screenwriters to introduce ourselves, ask questions, open channels… enter the room, so to speak, so they would know we were there.
What do you think male-oriented organizations can do to enhance their recruiting efforts to attract more women?
They need to be less insecure and put women in power — start with one! And give her agency, so she can build a mandate to bring on more.
Ok thank you for all of that. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
Carve a niche and be an expert at it. We focus on a very specific wheelhouse — women screenwriters of fiction over 40 — and commit to it.
Don’t be afraid to say you’re an expert — matter of factly. We lead with metrics — the work we’ve done and the benefits. But we keep it simple and turn focus on the community.
Know the facts for why what you do is important. See above, PLUS imbue it with honest passion (if you can muster after all the hard work and sacrifice!). Don’t forget that facts aren’t just numbers, they’re also stories of relief, joy, validation, which are very nourishing.
Respect people — especially women — including yourself. Always remember that most people have something to offer, if you listen. Our script reading process and then the Lab intensive itself is the embodiment of this. Sometimes it’s hard to absorb someone else’s POV, but doing so regularly makes your brain feel like it’s eating and growing.
Ally yourself with those you respect, reach out to strangers you admire, and tell them so.
Respect women’s choices — including yours.
Leave shame at the door. — We promise you can live with your mistakes. So make them, early and often.
If you had a close woman friend who came to you with a choice of entering a field that is male-dominated or female-dominated, what would you advise her? Would you advise a woman friend to start a career in a field or industry that’s traditionally been mostly men? Can you explain what you mean?
It’s not about the field, it’s about who you are. Self-awareness is paramount: What are you good at? What do you want? What is your temperament? Can you handle the challenge? It’s ok if you can’t! But figure out what you’re good at and what you want to be better at. Know what means something to you!!
Have you seen things change for women working in male-dominated industries, over the past ten years? How do you anticipate that it might improve in the future? Can you please explain what you mean?
Yes, there are more women directors, and more women TV writers. Numbers are shifting, but there’s still a long way to go. As a point of reference, when we first started, the percentage of women coal miners was higher than the percentage of women writers working in Hollywood. Changes are becoming more apparent as numbers shift, and that’s inspiring. But we have to use that success to bite bigger.
Interestingly, as women directors gain opportunities to lead, some US shows are adopting a more European shooting schedule. The traditional US schedule has 14- to 18-hour days. Great for those who don’t want to go home, or don’t have to think about childcare. But the industry is opening up to a shorter — smarter — day.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
- Jen Salke, Head of Amazon Studios
- Sarah Aubrey, Head of Original Content, HBO Max
- Sonia Gardner, President Avenue Capital
So smart, thinking outside the box, both about content and business. I’d want to ask how they see content development and content sourcing evolving in the coming years and what that means for how writers get started and make a living. And alternative models for the economics of both art and entertainment — how the relationship between the art of writing, the business of filmmaking and the commerce of content distribution might look in the future.
Some other possibilities:
Bela Bajaria, Head of Global TV, Netflix
Gina Balian, President of Original Programming, FX productions
Nicole Brown, President TriStar Pictures
Dede Gardner, Partner Plan B Entertainment
Meg Whitman, EBay
Sonia Gardner, President Avenue Capital
Jeff Skoll, Founder Participant Media
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
