Are contemporary rom-com actors and films really that bad or should critics and audiences be widening their perspectives?

You need to watch this for the pure joy of it. A little girl breakdances her heart out and destroys the competition. The English girl was competing in France over the weekend in a so-called Baby Battle.

The DGA Women of Action Summit held an informal, private meeting to advocate for more women in the director's chair.

This twenty-eight year-old pediatric dentist has launched a social media campaign to make history on the popular ABC reality series.

“Makers: Women Who Make America,” debuts tonight on PBS at 8 p.m. Narrated by Meryl Streep, the film covers the last 50 years of the women’s movement.

When you cozy up on your couch to watch the 85th annual Academy Awards Ceremony this Sunday, you may notice something strange: a (relative) absence of women. Sure, there will be plenty of red-carpet footage of starlets in gowns and who-wore-what chatter, but this year's list of nominees once again reminds us of the marked gender disparities in the film industry.

No woman is the best director this past year.  Or can even be considered for that title because not one was nominated by The Academy for an Oscar.

By L. Marie Adeline

Did you catch any of the One Billion Rising actions that happened worldwide Thursday to help fight violence against women? After the jump, check out a video of one of the actions -- a Delhi flash mob -- while it was still in the practice phase. Participants, male and female, young and old, gathered in a local park to rehearse their flash mob moves, which they were scheduled to execute at 5pm the day of the global actions.

In a study released last week by the Sundance Institute and Women In Film Los Angeles (WIF LA), we got some pretty lukewarm news about women in the independent film industry. The findings essentially showed that while female indie filmmakers made promising strides during the 2013 awards season, there is still a lot of ground to make up until they’re on equal footing with their male counterparts.

Successful and ambitious women are encouraged by their fathers -- or so goes a commonly held wisdom. It turns out that novelist Jane Austen was not just encouraged by her sisters, but her father took an active role in her literary career. According to Austen Only, George Austen was "an early fan" who "took the extraordinary step of approaching a London publisher on Jane’s behalf."

Bazillions of women have read 50 Shades of Grey, and many of them fantasize about being desired as much Christian Grey desires Ana. But who is this man who has captured the erotic imaginations of countless women? What’s his personality? His psychological makeup? He might be exciting for an S&M affair, but is he someone you’d want to spend a lot of time with? To wit, a psychometric portrait of Christian Grey.

This year, the French-language film Amour managed to break out of the Best Foreign Film category and enter the mainstream Oscar competition with nominations for Best Screenplay, Directing, Lead Actress, and of course, Best Picture. (Incidentally, it seems unfair for a picture to be up for Best Picture AND Best Foreign Film, but that's the Oscars for you.) The movie has already won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and seems to be a shoo-in for the same category at the Oscars.

An infographic designed by Megan Jett looks at women in the architecture world, including their current status in the industry and their history in the field. According to the graphic, which cites the Architect's Journal's Women in Architecture survey, "the percentage of women in architecture has fallen over the past few years." Nevertheless, there are some women doing groundbreaking work around the globe.