Ava DuVernay, Gina Rodriguez, more share photos of themselves directing for #FemaleFilmmakerFriday

There’s never been a more pertinent time to celebrate women behind the camera — with the #TimesUp movement working to make workplaces safer for all and Greta Gerwig becoming only the fifth woman ever to receive a best director Oscar nomination, the inequity of women in Hollywood has had a harsh light cast on it of late.

The statistics still remain dispiriting — a new study found that only 11 percent of 2017’s top 250 films were directed by women.

With the notion that it’s difficult to aspire to become something you don’t see, female filmmakers shared Friday on Twitter photos of themselves directing on set and highlighting the work of women behind the camera.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna posted a photo of herself directing with the caption, “We were planning this for 2/2 but people were excited, so let’s go for it! My friend Tamra Davis recently posted a photo of herself directing and it inspired me, so I invited some women to do the same. It’s hard to become what you do not see. #femalefilmmakerfriday.”

This kicked off a viral trend which inspired the likes of Ava DuVernay, Kerry Washington, Gina Rodriguez, Lesli Linka Glatter, and more to join in and share photos of themselves while directing. Many used the platform to speak out about inequity, with Glatter writing, “It shouldn’t be harder for our daughters to direct than for our sons, it should be an equal playing field. It’s time that this is no longer an issue, the time is NOW!!!”

While this marked the first time the trend went viral, Female Filmmaker Friday has been a hashtag and trend since 2014 when writer Marya E. Gates began a column with that name on her blog Cinema Fanatic, which then became a podcast in 2017. Each week, Gates highlighted a female-helmed film for readers to check out — the title then became “A Year with Women,” a year-long campaign watching, tweeting, and discussing films created by women.

See below for a sampling of tweets from the various female directors participating in #FemaleFilmmakerFriday.