The first video editors were women.
Women had the skills to edit the film strips without damaging them.
They edited the celluloid film strips with sissors and tape. Handling the films required preciseness, dexterity, cleverness and patience. The kind used in haute couture.
And, like in haute couture, the pressure was high, because a damaged film strip could mean having to shoot the entire scene all over again.
Because many people saw film editing – or cutting, as it was called then – as unglamorous, secretarial work, it proved to be an easier entry point for women in the industry. And it gave them a lot of creative control.
Being an editor often means being unoticed by the audience, but an editor's choices can make or break a movie. Artistry is involved.
Proportionately, there were more women employed in every aspect of the movie business during its first two decades than at any time since.
Women also had to learn to use the machines, which were constantly evolving,
When the industry started using magnetic strips, editors of both sexes used microscopes to try and edit them, but it proved difficult for all of them. And messing up meant re-editing the entire movie. There was no room for error.
However, when the industry started using computers to edit the videos, which meant you could correct your mistakes and dexterity wasn't needed anymore, men started taking women's place. Despite the fact that computers were also initially made by women.
As film work became a more prestigious occupation, and eventually as the assembly-line practices of the studio system were codified, women were discouraged from pursuing editing, if not actually pushed out of jobs.
Nowadays, only 30 to 50% of editors are women, which is still the profession that counts the most women in the industry.
More recent movies edited by women include:
Pulp Fiction, Oppenheimer, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Wizard of Oz, Moonlight, The Wolf of Wall Street, Singin' in the Rain, Jaws, E.T, Happy Feet, Bonnie and Clyde, Star Wars, Inglourious Basterds, Reservoir Dogs, The Departed, Scream, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Lives of Others, The Hurtlocker, Apocalypse Now, The Irishman, Goodfellas, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.
Women also edit documentaries, such as Kim Roberts who edited the remarkable Food, Inc., The Hunting Ground, Unrest and Victim/Suspect.
And of course, women also edit content for the internet, as well as live TV, news reports, concerts etc.
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