Women are being excluded from the Cultural Recovery Taskforce, a new report highlights.
No women hold leadership positions on the advisory group charged with guiding the sector's recovery from the coronavirus, and there are only three women on the taskforce as a whole.
Equity President Maureen Beattie, Watford Palace Artistic Director Brigid Lamour, Sphinx Theatre Artistic Director Sue Parrish and others have lobbied Oliver Dowden and the Cultural Recovery Commissioner Neil Mendoza to address this, but say they received no interest.
Parrish called the imbalance "disgraceful".
"It’s astonishing a government taskforce could be so behind the curve and we will certainly be pursuing them."
The report by the Women in Theatre Forum also notes other persistent gender inequalities within the sector.
Eight out of 10 female performers are forced to turn down work due to parental and caring responsibilities and 72% felt pressure to look a certain way to get work compared to 28% of male performers.
There were complaints from trans women of being undermined in the rehearsal room, female directors being paid less for the same work than men, and university students being told not to wear anything too revealing by their lecturers.