Narrativa e cultura focadas na prática de mudança de cultura

Our Setting the Scene newsletter applies the latest news, research and data to storytelling about gender, work, family and care. And subscribe here.

Read our most recent issue of Setting the Scene, from March 25, 2025, is here and addresses the storytelling possibilities that arise from the gender wage gap, as well as shares stories from original Better Life Lab research and reporting about families with low wages managing work, family, and care.

Back issues:

Our first issue, from October 3, 2023, is here and focuses on paid leave, child care and pregnant workers’ rights.

Our second issue, from October, 24, 2023, is here and focuses on providing work-family context in abortion and pregnancy storytelling.

Our third issue, from December 13, 2023, is here and focuses on gratitude for the great examples of on-screen gender, work, family and care content in 2023, along with some highlights of our project’s first full year.

Our fourth issue, from January 18, 2024, is here and focuses on place-based storytelling, with tips for integrating paid family leave and paid sick time into TV and film content.

Our fifth issue, from March 14, 2024 is here and shares key findings from streaming audience research conducted for the Better Life Lab at New America by MarketCast, finding 84% of streaming audiences want to see more depictions of realistic work, family, and care stories on screen and that shows with work, family, and care stories generate outsized online engagement.

Our sixth issue, from April 17, 2024, is here, focusing on civic engagement storytelling with a work, family, and care lens.

Our seventh issue, from May 21, 2024, is here and focuses on authentic representation of working parents on screen. It also includes a new tip sheet on this topic!

Our eighth issue, from June 25, 2024, is here and provides data from three new studies that can help shape storytelling about work, family, and care and offers a new tip sheet on place-based storytelling.

Our ninth issue, from August 8, 2024, is here, and shares new data on near-universal public support for work, family, and care policies and provides a new tip sheet on civic engagement storytelling focused on work-family issues.

Our 10th issue, from September 10, 2024, is here, and focuses on work, family, care, and gender equity in Emmy-nominated shows and in new shows premiering on network TV for the 2024-25 season. It also provides context for why child care is a major expense and an issue that can’t be solved through older relatives “helping out.”

Our 11th issue, from October 17, 2024, is here, and illustrates how stories about climate change, corporate greed, reproductive rights and health, equal pay, and stress embed work, family, care, and gender (in)equity/gender norms.

Our 12th issue, from November 12, 2024, is here, and includes a recap of successful paid leave, reproductive rights, and elder- and child-care ballot initiative results that demonstrate areas of common agreement among U.S. voters; it also praises CBS’s The Neighborhood for its treatment of paternity leave — and shares new updates to California’s paid family leave program.

Our 13th issue, from December 17, 2024, is here, and recaps some of the “best of” 2024 for gender, work, family, and care as part of media inclusion and audience engagement discussions and on some of TV’s most-watched network, streaming, and cable shows.

Our 14th issue, from February 5, 2025, is here and seeks to make sense of early 2025 upheavals with respect to wildfires, immigration, economics, and gender and provides research-backed suggestions and resources to help guide storytelling.

Research among U.S. streaming viewers finds that 84% of audiences are interested in seeing more depictions of realistic work, family, and care situations on T.V., and 60% are interested in specifics around gender representation on screen with integrated work and family lives; supportive bosses, colleagues and communities; caregivers and parents speaking with pride rather than apology; and people finding and using resources like paid family and medical leave, child care, and elder and disability care.

Gen Z, Millennials, and parents — as well as people who have managed work-family and care challenges or expect to in the next five years — are especially interested in seeing realistic and aspirational depictions on screen.

Read the full report here.

Variety business editor, Todd Spangler, wrote a feature on our MarketCast study and the Re-Scripting Gender, Work, Family, and Care project. As our founder and director told Spangler in this article:

“We believe that this research will be a catalyst for policy and culture changes in the U.S. — to help drive greater access to paid family and medical leave, affordable and available child and elder care, and pay equity for women, BIPOC communities, LGBTQ folks and people with disabilities.” …Part of what’s stymying such lobbying efforts, she said, are “these narratives in the culture about pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps and managing these life challenges through individual initiative. But we know that doesn’t accurately reflect the reality that we need policies that support families navigating work, child care and elder care, which disproportionately affects women, who perform the bulk of caregiving and earn lower wages on average.”

The Variety article is here.