--- ---  # Director Angela Robinson: They Don’t Want Us Here. But Now They Need Us by [Angela Robinson](https://time.com/author/angela-robinson/) ## Angela Robinson Mar 1, 2018 12:30 PM UTC  Angela Robinson, writer-director of Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman speaks onstage during IMDb LIVE at NY Comic-Con at Javits Center on October 7, 2017 in New York City. Angela Robinson, writer-director of Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman speaks onstage during IMDb LIVE at NY Comic-Con at Javits Center on October 7, 2017 in New York City.Bryan Bedder—Getty Images for IMDb.com by [Angela Robinson](https://time.com/author/angela-robinson/) ## Angela Robinson Mar 1, 2018 12:30 PM UTC Every year, I go and speak to the American Film Institute’s Women Director’s Workshop and I start with the same sentence: “They don’t want you here.” Sometimes this is met with confusion or blank stares, but often, it’s nods of recognition. What I’m articulating is what [these women—many of them women of color](http://time.com/5096809/natalie-portman-golden-globes-hollywood-sexism/)—_know to be true._ “They don’t want you here.” This simple truth has probably rarely—if ever—been spoken out-loud on their [long journey to Hollywood](http://time.com/4651594/octavia-spencer-harvard-hasty-pudding/), especially by someone within the industry. I give the requisite caveats—I’m not talking all white men or even individual white men, I’m talking about They with a capital “T.” I go on to say that although Hollywood [is a sexist and racist place](http://time.com/5076323/olivia-munn-sexual-harassment-hollywood-essay/), that is not _why_ they don’t want you here. There are two reasons. The first reason is economic. There are a finite amount of jobs. And if you—a woman—[get a job directing a movie](http://time.com/5087673/film-directors-diversity-report/) it means that some white dude doesn’t. It’s a reasonable reaction: I don’t care how much I like you or want to do the right thing. If you say, “Hey, I want your job,” I’m going to say, “Hell no.” (Usually the women laugh here.) I go on to tell these talented women that they cannot be lulled into a false sense of security by the well-intentioned folks who run diversity programs because those people are, unfortunately, _not_ the people doing the hiring. The second reason is deeper. It has to do with cis white male fantasy and wanting to see the world through a lens where they’re the heroes and always get the girl. What’s even harder than taking somebody’s job is asking him to give up that lens on the world. I tell the women at AFI this because they need to know what they are up against. This has been my gospel, year in and year out. But last April, when I spoke to these same women at their graduation ceremony, something was different. I had just finished directing a feature; I felt the landscape shifting beneath my feet. I was like a scientist in a disaster movie, like Anne Heche in _Volcano_, watching the Richter scale and birds flying in unusual patterns—and, to continue the disaster metaphor, I felt that the collective [rage women were feeling over Trump’s election was simmering.](http://time.com/5111480/womens-march/) And like in every disaster movie, before the tsunami hits, the water slips way, way, way back, exposing all the beach for a mile out to sea, gathering, gathering, gathering power—and then the tsunami comes crashing down. Which is what happened, and which is still happening. I gave my speech back before [#metoo](http://time.com/5175341/monica-lewinsky-vanity-fair-essay/) and before #[Time’s Up](http://time.com/5102698/oprah-times-up-cbs-sunday-morning/), before [_Wonder Woman_](http://time.com/4979257/the-women-behind-wonder-woman/) and [_Black Panther._](http://time.com/black-panther/) But at the end of my speech, I said this: “They might not want you here but I have a feeling that sometime soon, they may _need_ you here.” That time is now. Hollywood Now Needs Women, Whether or Not it Wants Them ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5179747/angela-robinson-women-in-hollywood/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5179747/angela-robinson-women-in-hollywood/"},"headline":"Director Angela Robinson: They Don’t Want Us Here. 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