Streep talks Hollywood’s gender divide

Meryl Streep thinks female filmmakers have it hard because “all of history is really about boy”.

The 65-year-old three-time Academy Award-winner has made a name for herself as one of the movie industry’s most talented actresses.

But as she took to the stage at a panel as part of Tina Brown's annual Women in the World Summit in New York on Wednesday night, Meryl said there is a reason that women have a harder time pushing forward in Hollywood.

"The women who have been directors have had a really tough time breaking in, in our business," she told the audience alongside Selma director Ava DuVernay and producer Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy at New York’s Lincoln Center.

"A lot of it has to do with imagination and this active empathy that women go through from the time we're little girls. We read all of literature and all of history is really about boy, most of it. But I can feel more like Peter Pan than Tinkerbell. Or Wendy. I want to be Tom Sawyer, not Becky.

"That active empathising with the protagonist of a male driven plot. That's what we've done all our lives. You read history, great literature, Shakespeare. They're all fellas.”

Meryl has starred in films including The Devil Wears Prada, The Iron Lady and Doubt.

But Meryl admitted the most difficult thing in her career so far has been trying to get male audience members to connect with her characters.

“It's very hard for them to put themselves in the shoes of the female protagonist,” she said. “This is known to the studios. They know it's the toughest suit of clothes to wear, for heterosexual men."