They say the writers room of a television series can be its own little world. "Torchwood" and "Game of Thrones" alum Jane Espenson discovered the reality of that this week.

"I had certainly perceived the situation as getting better and better for women -- I am rarely the only woman in the writers room anymore, and I encounter more women at the higher levels," Espenson recently told AOL TV's Maureen Ryan. "I remember what it was like 20 years ago, and this is not that."

But we could be partying like it's 1999 again soon. A report from San Diego State University's Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film said the number of women holding writing positions on television shows dropped from 35 percent in the 2006-07 season to just 15 percent last season.

Ryan, a former writer with the Chicago Tribune, decided to investigate.

"Asked to explain these worrying trends, the writers I spoke to offered various interpretations, ranging from economic pressures to old-fashioned sexism," Ryan wrote in her piece. "Taken together, their observations paint a nuanced picture of a professional environment that's as stubbornly resistant to change as any in America."

One of the culprits could be the writers strike from a few years back. That, coupled with the recession, has forced many television shows to cut back on writers. And usually it's the minorities -- like women -- that are most affected by such reductions.

"Anecdotally, I think in hard economic times, there's a misconception that men are still the breadwinners," said Nell Scovell, a television and magazine writer who has worked on shows like "Warehouse 13."

"If you give a woman a job, she's only supporting herself. But if you give a man a job, he'll support an entire family. This is far from the truth."

One primary example of this strange lopsidedness in gender equality in television can be seen in the new Fox series "Terra Nova." That show has a whole football team as executive producers -- 12 -- but only two are women. And those women aren't even involved in day-to-day creative decisions, Ryan said.

But not all new television shows are following that model. The new J.J. Abrams series "Alcatraz," which will also appear in Fox, has four women not just in the writers room, but as senior writers. But a lot of that might be because the show's co-creator, Elizabeth Sarnoff, is running the show, and made a concerted effort.

"There just aren't enough women on writing staffs, period," Sarnoff said. "I felt very marginalized on every staff I've ever been on, because you feel like, 'Now I have to say that chicks wouldn't do that.' Because there's nobody else to say it. It's not that guys are biased in one way or another ... they're just guys in the same way we're women."

The goal of surveys like the one done by the university is to ensure that trends like the declining number of minorities in writing rooms and attached to Hollywood projects get addressed. Although the report created little fanfare when it was released in August, it's certainly getting some attention now.