The under-sung history of editing is filled with women’s names, unlike that of directing and cinematography. “Women were thought to be good editors because they had small hands, and it was also thought that editing was a little bit like sewing,” says Martha Lauzen, who runs the Center for the Study of Women in Film and Television at San Diego State University, where the Celluloid Ceiling study is done. “It was considered something women could do because you were stitching pieces together,” adds Anita Brandt Burgoyne, who edited Legally Blonde and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, among many other films. “It was a little like housework.
