At this year’s Oscars, Best Supporting Actress winner Patricia Arquette used her acceptance speech as a powerful platform to advocate for women’s rights. She said, in part “we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights, it’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”
Arquette caused some controversy when she sort-of claimed, during her backstage press conference following her win, that LGBT and minority groups had not done their part to support feminist issues. She said “it’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.” On Twitter Arquette made it clear that she was calling out the LGBT community for their lack of attention to women’s issues. She also made the important point that minority women are most affected by wage inequality.
That’s all background to Arquette’s new interview, with Fortune Magazine, in which she speaks at length about women’s rights. Arquette has been an advocate for California’s Equal Pay Act, which is said to be the toughest in the nation and is expected to become law soon. While reading this interview, I found myself nodding at several things Arquette said, especially when she explained how women in her mother’s generation had so few options that they often stayed with abusive partners rather than take their chances on their own. She made some really compelling comments about the politics of abortion as well.
I’m going to excerpt some of her interview below, but I recommend you read it at the source for more.
Why focus on the wage gap?
The inequality affects everything. It’s a web. We need to understand how destabilizing it is. We have to be more aware of how this issue affects women across the board. The pay gap happens in 98% of occupations, and it touches on every aspect of our lives. I just can’t see how we can have a healthy middle class without equal pay.
There is so much subconscious bias. Women have to pay more for health insurance, and we see that black women have higher rates of death from breast cancer because they don’t get care. I hear from teachers all the time that children come to school hungry on Mondays as they didn’t eat enough over the weekend. We have single mothers who aren’t earning a fair wage. And 40% of African American children are living below the poverty line. If you care about kids, hunger, or sexual abuse, if you care about any of these things, they are all related to economic inequality.
We are selling our daughters this phony-baloney story that they can go to college and be anything they want to be, but we don’t tell them they are not going to get paid as much as a man who does the same. They can get degrees, but will spend a longer time paying back student loans because they’ll earn less than men.
What’s your reaction to the attention being paid toward the status of women in Hollywood, from efforts to get more women behind the camera, and writing and directing, to hashtag campaigns for smarter questions on the runway?
The ACLU’s looking at discrimination in the industry, and that’s good. With the Sony hack we saw the disparity in salary, how very successful women were paid less than men at the same level, and that even less successful men were paid more. There is no way we can’t take that seriously. There are very few successful women in Hollywood, and that needs to change. I can’t complain about my situation, but it’s not common.
Do you think women’s issues are getting enough attention in the Presidential election so far?
Not at all. During the CNN debate I tweeted to remind them that more than half of the population is female. We have people running for president who don’t believe in abortion even if a woman’s life is in danger. They will put a fetus ahead of the life of a woman, of their wife or daughter. Politicians are afraid to dictate to business to pay women as well as men. But if we want a healthy economy we have to treat everyone—women, men and women of color, transgender and gay people—everyone, equally.
As an actress, you’ve taken some risks, such as moving into TV at a time when people thought it would harm a movie career, and taking you role in Boyhood in which we watched you age naturally over 12 years. Were those difficult decisions?
We live in a very image- and age-focused culture. We are teaching our daughters that all that matters is that they are this sexual ideal. A really strong thing for women in Hollywood is to hold on to the ingénue role as long as possible. But I wanted to get out of that gig as soon as I could. I pushed the boundaries as much as I could along the way. I remember a director telling my agent that it would be great if I could lose 10 pounds as long as my boobs didn’t get smaller. I didn’t want to lose 10 pounds and I didn’t. There were times I turned down movies when I needed work financially, when I had a newborn, because the roles were inappropriate, or the director was inappropriate or unethical. That is another reason I feel the way I do about gender pay equality. I grew up in a time when women felt they couldn’t make those choices, when women couldn’t leave bad marriages and battered women stayed with their abusers because they couldn’t afford to do it alone.
A lot of outlets are running with the headline that Arquette was told to lose weight but keep her boobs (which I know from personal experience is impossible). To me that anecdote speaks to the larger issues that she brings up in this interview and that she’s discussed with the press for some time. I appreciate how outspoken she is, and how she’s not afraid to be controversial or polarizing in her opinions. We need more celebrities like Arquette who actually understand feminism and can explain how inequality affects all of us. We need more politicians like her too.
Arquette stars on CSI: Cyber, which returns for season two on CBS on October 4th.
photo credit: WENN.com and FameFlynet
maybe the LGBT and other minorities have their hands full already
i hate when minority x is “required” to go help minority y, just because they are both minorities
Did you even read the post?
yes thank you for asking
just because there is a more current interview doesnt mean i dont get to still think her oscar interview was annoying
what Patricia is saying is that when LGBT and other minorities work for wage equality, they will redress many of the issues filling their hands already because those issues are linked to economic oppression.
When you address wage equality, you are addressing social inequality. That’s her point. Your point makes it seem like you completely missed hers.
In fact, any study of successful social movements will show that Patricia is right on the money. How were the students in Montreal able to successfully mobilize the public against tuition hikes? They portrayed the hikes as encroachment by the state on everyone’s economic security. If the state will unilaterally slam students with 75% tuition fee hikes, the state will come for people’s pensions next. That’s how you mobilize. That’s how you effect change. That’s how you take on deeply embedded and broad-based inequality.
In practical terms, the whole works better than the individual parts.
The reason feminism appears to have fragmented whereby some countries are asking for equal wages whilst others are asking for equal education opportunities is that somewhere we forgot to look at the whole.
All the minorities asking for equal rights across the board is better as a whole rather than the fragmentation of different minorities seemingly asking for their individual rights without taking into consideration that their fight is also another minority’s fight.
As an example, when early feminists asked for the vote, it was treated as an issue for all women rather than eg only heterosexual, white women in perfect health.
We’ve fragmented to a point where if we were seeking to vote as the primary issue, we’d ask for only a specific group to be granted the vote instead of seeing that a vote for all benefits everyone.
The problem that she doesn’t seem to understand is that many women of color like myself support feminism all the way. However I’m starting to notice that many White women feminists do not support issues that affect people of color. Noticing now as they gain more power they actual discriminate against people of color the same way White men used to do.
I have seen it at work often enough now to be alarmed. White women who will promote other White women and see women of color as “not their people”. Especially smart and confident women of color whom they see as threatened or women of color from a lower socio-economic status whom they are ignorant about and assign racist traits to if they grew up wealthy or in the private school clicks. I understand now why some women of color are disillusioned with feminism.
Ditto with people of color in LGBT communities seen as secondary to White LGBT. In every subgroup there is always a natural tendency to form a new ranking but always with the old world belief that White should be at the top.
well, if it makes you feel better, “white” doesn’t have fixed boundaries. As an identity group, it changes over time. Jews, Italians and Irish used to be not quite white, and now they are.
I generally think that any woman who gets to the top is mainly half brainwashed to think the system worked for them so it must work for everyone.
Also, take heart: the military is the closest thing left to a meritocracy. Black women rise there…provided they act like men. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a straight high-ranking female. If you’re not interested in/don’t have access to marriage or kids, the military is great!
That’s not entirely true. In many places the feminists fighting for the vote relied on racism to drum up support. In my country the thing that won the battle was white feminists convincing white men they needed more whites to vote as they’d just recently allowed some men of other races to vote.
WOC weren’t even really considered, the general assumption by both the white feminists and the white men in power being that they were so uneducated they’d have no interest in voting, so giving them the vote didn’t matter either way. The WOC movements and contributions were ignored at the time, and nowadays effectively erased from history bar the actions of one or two women who were given legitimacy because they were accepted by a handful of white feminists.
Still today I see white feminists in my country sharing images of these women, talking about how amazing and brave they were, and no one seems to notice that the words on many of the signs they’re holding up wouldn’t be out of place at a Klan or Neo-Nazi rally. It wasn’t a subtle argument they were making, many were overtly racist in a way that jumps out massively today, but so many people either don’t see it or ignore it because it’s too problematic to deal with.
Today I see a lot of white feminists here acting all confused about why they’re having trouble getting WOC to join them, and I wonder how anyone can be so dense.
@ Original TC I completely agree with your assessment. I started to notice that lots of white feminist leaders, were not so helpful to the black community or black cause. I also noticed that lots of white feminist were out and out racist towards African-Americans and breaking up the black home. Yet, they are quick to say we must all join the cause. Really, where was the cause when a black woman was killed in a jail cell? Where were these feminist when a black female teenager was accosted by a white male police officer while wearing a bikini?
amunet – Here are some women who would probably identify themselves as white feminists protesting the death of Sandra Bland. I agree with you that there should be more support than there is – but also wanted to show that the support it out there. Sandra Bland should never have died.
http://cincinnatibell.net/news/read/category/AP%20Top%20News%20-%20US%20Headlines/article/the_associated_press-jail_to_release_more_sandra_bland_footage_before_h-ap
https://www.google.com/search?q=protests+over+texas+death+sandra+bland&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAkQ_AUoA2oVChMIs7iUqregyAIVVX-SCh2juwkR&biw=1113&bih=688&dpr=2#imgrc=X849_jeUOlhu_M%3A
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20150717-texas-agencies-fault-trooper-who-stopped-woman-jail-where-she-died.ece
http://www.timesunion.com/news/texas/article/Texas-officials-release-video-from-jail-in-Sandra-6395895.php
Speaking as a member of the LGBT community, I’m not sure why we can’t work together on this issue. Patricia has some amazing points in the interview. Half of the gay community is women, and we should be upset that over our lifetime we make less than our male counterparts.
Yeah, that bothers me too, when people treat minorities as political parties. Within a same minority you can find several different opinions.
I like what she’s saying here, though.
That is actually a tactic–that works–that the union uses when they go on strike, or protest an unfair work environment. Union Local#123 will go to the picket line to support Local#345 and GUESS WHAT. It works! Just because Local#123 doesn’t have the same issues as Local#345, doesn’t mean they refuse to support and advance the cause as a whole.
There is POWER in numbers!
“Also, take heart: the military is the closest thing left to a meritocracy. Black women rise there…”
I’ve started noticing. Especially women of color I have met in the Arm Force. They work hard and are routinely promoted based on merit. I was pleasantly surprised because I assumed the military would be more sexist. Unfortunately I’m a lover not a fighter 🙂 but I do mentoring of teen girls so I’m encouraging those who need more structure or don’t want to go to college to look into the military.
P.s. Biggest opposition to Obama Care and health care benefits to poor children and poor women were married White women who also tend to vote Republican. So again all women want to support feminist principles and equal pay but they seem not all women support THEM in their fight for survival, against racism, police brutality and may actually turn around and become new oppressors.
“i hate when minority x is “required” to go help minority y, just because they are both minorities.”
I do think we should work to help each other, (and it’s not like a lot of these rights and goals don’t overlap) but her original comment did kind of make it sound like the only people fighting for women’s rights are straight white women.
That’s the right way to school us all, you go Patricia.
Smart, well-paced, informative interview from Patricia. You can tell she’s done her homework whether one agrees with her thoughts or not. This is what feminism is, equal pay, equal rights, equal everything. When my rights are known and respected, I can make smarter decisions about my life, career, family, the same way a man can and no one bats an eyelash. That’s feminism.
hear hear!
Come on! I’ve been told, even on this site, that feminism means that you can show up half dressed like Rihanna and no one should think poorly of you because it’s your choice. I don’t think Arquette or Gloria Steinem would agree with that, though.
(Just annoyed and disappointed how many younger women seem to have missed the point about feminism which was about NEVER having to use your body to get ahead. )
If only those like Marion Cottilard listened to her instead of relying on perverts like Harvey Weinstein to push their careers.
Harvey has been doing no favours for Marion of late. He has buried her last film The Immigrant and looks to do the same for Macbeth.
Of course he is, she is no longer the ingenue. I expect she will be finding feminism more appealing as her career continues to dry up. I know an empty headed opportunist when I see one.
Weinstein got her the Oscar for that Edith Piaf biopic. Now she’s too old for him.
“or the director was inappropriate or unethical.”
I wish there had been some follow-up on what she meant. This nonsense needs to be called out explicitly by actors if there’s any hope of getting it to stop.
I thought that too, when I read it, but on reflection…to what end? Say she spills the tea, and names names, what then? Then the story is the gossip about so-and-so and the feud, and the dirt. The issue of equality stops being the issue.
Furthermore, I really think that increasingly, any actress that speaks out risks career damage – she’s the b-tch no one wants to works with.
The smartest line is one Arquette is walking. Be vocal, but keep to the issue.
I agree with you, Lurker. It’s too dangerous for her career to spill names and, without exaggerating, it could be a potential danger to her personal safety. The backlash could be huge, even with evidence. Just look at the Cosby situation. Loads of women – some very well-known – have come forward and still, there are big names supporting this arsewipe and throwing the victims under a bus.
It would be great to see Meryl and JLo, amongst others, not just clap but speak out as Patricia is doing.
Great interview with Patricia.
There is no oppressed group that should be called on to help White women. Seriously???
This is stupid and selfish. This woman needs to stop talking.
I’m not sure you understood her point.
Is her point not to make her brand of feminism’s focus on bridging the wage gap, and that it will solve inequality issues? Where does it take into consideration that POC and others are inherently excluded from progressing in most careers because of institutional oppression? Focusing on the wage gap only benefits those with a foot in the door.
When “feminism” talk refuses to acknowledge intersectionality then it only benefits White, cis gendered women.
Actually, I misunderstood what you meant. You make an excellent point that I hadn’t thought of before. I was thinking that she was including POC by her focus on how wage inequality hurts them disproportionately, but I see what you mean. Fixing that won’t be a magic bullet. It’s an important, a very important point, and I hope that you will keep saying it. Maybe she didn’t mean to blow it off, but it just didn’t occur to her. Not that that’s an excuse for her or for me, but I’m glad you made me think about it, and I won’t forget it.
Except that she’s not talking about “white women”, she’s talking about women, period. And what she says makes sense, as most oppressed groups are composed at least partially of women.
It’s true–I feel like as a daughter, I was sold a phony story. I look back at all these important turning points….probably the most obvious was when I was 28 and job hunting after my masters. Again when I was 30 and editing a journal…at each point I notice that the men around me were getting ahead and I wasn’t even though I had better marks and more experience. The hardest is when you’re 32 and you have to start thinking about your fertility and how you’re going to work a baby into your career and the guys around you who’ve been partying for the last decade are only just starting to get serious about work. I mean, it’s all you can do to hang in there and not get shoved out of your field unless it’s one that specifically recruits women, like nursing or teaching.
I agree. As a single child and a girl, I was told I could do anything. Education would bring me anywhere. It’s oboviusly false. While I don’t exactly blame my mom, bc this was equality to her and I will teach my future daughter, if I ever have one, the same, it goes to show how much I hate the system.
I learned some painful lessons about taking charge of my own career. But at the same time, you don’t completely control your own career. The opportunities have to be there. My doctoral dissertation supervisor is really the first person to ever go to bat for me and I could not have completed this dissertation without him. I really feel like I’ve worked three times as hard as everyone else to get there, though. Like Viola said about black actresses in Hollywood, you really can’t exercise any sort of agency about your own future without opportunity.
“We are selling our daughters this phony-baloney story that they can go to college and be anything they want to be, but we don’t tell them they are not going to get paid as much as a man who does the same. They can get degrees, but will spend a longer time paying back student loans because they’ll earn less than men.”
That’s not even touching on the fact that women are required to have credentials in order to get the job while all men need is the experience…seen it too many times to count.
This wasn’t in the US but it was honestly depressing when my husband (who has a high school diploma) got a job with minimal experience making the exact same salary as I did when I taught AP English (and I had a masters) with years of experience. That kind of stuff wears you down. It’s fine when you’re 22 and nobody has experience anyway and you’re all making kind of crap salaries. But ten or fifteen years later, you can’t figure out why even though you did everything right, the doors still aren’t opening. That’s when you really feel the inequality of opportunity, recognition and reward.
@ PennyLane
That’s a great point. The man in the office next to me replaced someone in a position and he has the bare minimum where credentials are concerned. The woman who previously had that position has a PhD. I also know that he’s getting paid at her level. Sigh……
“But ten or fifteen years later, you can’t figure out why even though you did everything right, the doors still aren’t opening. That’s when you really feel the inequality of opportunity, recognition and reward.”
That’s exactly when I started noticing it, too – in my late thirties, seemingly all of a sudden, a bunch guys in my own cohort were getting management positions, while none of the women were. None.
It wasn’t until the women were in their mid- to late-forties (when they had fulfilled ALL the requirements for being a manager and could no longer be shut out) that they started getting supervisory positions as well. At the next levels of management this was being repeated, with the result that there are still almost zero women at the top level, despite the pipeline being full for twenty years.
Turns out education and hard work are still trumped by a penis, not that anybody really wants to admit that. Add that stuff up bit by bit, year by year, and yeah…I kind of feel like I was sold a false bill of goods regarding education and hard work being enough to advance in your career.
If I had known just how stacked the deck was against me compared to my male coworkers, I would have done some backstabbing and played more hardball.
I was told flat out that I made too much money because I was a young woman who didn’t really “need the money”, because my husband earned enough himself . I was on a commission based structure at the time and landed a huge account that meant that I was earning more than anyone else, including my VP, so they halved my commission rate.
When I got pregnant a short time later they told me that when I came back from mat leave they would monitor how many emails/calls I was sending to ensure I was still working now that I was a mother.
Needless to say, rather than go back to work I got pregnant again and never looked back. I am one of the few who was able to do that.
This issue has no race or sexual orientation, we all need to work together to stop this.
It’s not always a phony story. I worked in a male-dominated profession (my first job there were 3 women professionals and over 100 men in the office) for many years and managed to rise to the executive ranks by taking career chances and risky (career wise, not physically risky) assignments that others weren’t open to. I also relocated numerous times. I knew what it took to get ahead whether you were male or female and did it. The men and women who didn’t do those things topped out a mid level. Sometimes it was hard to move or gut-wrenching to know that if I failed at an assignment I’d be sidelined, but that was true for the men as well. I never felt like I was disadvantaged as a woman. Maybe I was just lucky in the many offices I worked over the years. I’m not saying that other women don’t have problems in getting ahead, but sometimes it’s possible to succeed even in a male dominated profession.
It depends on how your profession operates. I’m in a male-dominated field. To get ahead, I need to publish. Many journals have an demonstrated publishing bias toward men.
Also, look at your premise. If you can make decisions like a male might have traditionally–if you can drag a family behind you or not have to consider fertility at all and put off having a family until you reach a certain point in your career–sure. You can find reward. Doesn’t mean the system is fair. A fair system is one that doesn’t punish people for being parents. Since parenthood is physically assumed by women, we are always punished more.
Of course it is possible, and it is wonderful that you worked for a company that does treat everyone fairly, regardless of sex . But rather than applauding these instances, we should be outraged that being treated fairly is the exception.
Funny how Meryl Streep stood there and applauded and is now claiming not to be a feminist…
She’s using the Shailene Woodley cop-out. However, unlike Shailene, Meryl is actively working to revive the movement to pass the ERA, so her perspective is slightly more convincing.
meryl said she’s a humanist. i think to some people the term “feminist” sounds not inclusive enough. it has a negative connotation and it’s a shame, but still, saying you’re a humanist isn’t on the level of saying you’re not a feminist.
On another site people thought that this was a deliberate move on Meryl’s part- that she’s an educated woman who knows what feminism means, but deliberately chose to dodge the question for whatever reason by calling herself a ‘humanist’.
Even though it’s frustrating to see people shy away from the world, I do think the fact that someone believes in and promotes equality is more important than whether or not they self-identify as a feminist. I’ll take that over the people who want to actually undo/prevent progress any day.
May have been a good strategic move on her point. Avoid all the loaded connotations and put the stress on a word which is inclusive of all beings and places herself in that category. Because she is not a dumb woman by any means.
(Yup, I’m a feminist. It’s not a dirty word to me.)
she’s great!
I can’t believe we still don’t have equal pay. It makes me tired. I’m interested to know how others on here feel about using Hollywood as an example of unequal pay, though. It’s hard, to me, to say female actor x should get the same pay as male actor y, because so many factors go into that – box office draw, fame, talent. It’s easier to see discrimination when the jobs and qualifications are exactly the same. Certainly, there’s across the board discrimination because I think ALL of the females were paid less than their male co-stars, but there is wiggle room. Anyway, it’s time for every industry to have equal pay, and she’s right – nobody is even talking about it.
Interesting question. The fact is that because there are so many factors that come in play to determine actor value and because those factors are not explicitly named and ranked, you can justify doing just about anything with the salaries. So you can claim that Chris Hemsworth should earn more than Charlize Theron, who has better name recognition and an Oscar, because his last movie made a billion dollars OR you can say that Chris Hemsworth last movie didnt make a billion dollars because he was in it, that was because its a Marvel movie with an ensemble cast and an in demand comic book hero, and that he just doesnt have name or face recognition. Therefore Charlize who has brought box office on her name alone should earn more or even the same.
In the end, as in everything, the tendency is idealise the male position. If theres an argument to be made it is made in favor of the man. Thats how you end up with JLaw and Amy earning less than Bale, Cooper and Renner, regardless of all the moving parts in that situation.
It should at least be commensurate with the work. Sienna Miller commented that she dropped out of a Broadway role because the director wouldn’t pay her as much as the male star and the women always end up doing more press anyway. And it’s true. Women actors sell those movies–in magazines, through fashion, by pimping out their families….they’re the hot girlfriend, the wife, the mother all in one. Women are marketed to a broader audience than men could ever reach on their own. And yet we’re told that’s just our role–that it’s not a deliberate marketing strategy that we should be appropriately compensated for.
But the thing is, guys never bother to think about the “factors that go into that”. They just know what they want, and ask for it. They are much more likely to ask for a higher starting salary than women. Because they feel like they deserve it. So while we are selling our daughters a story, it’s one that’s going to have to make inroads generation after generation until it sticks and the myth becomes reality. Until their worthiness and their right to fair pay is absolutely never, ever in doubt.
Blah blah, I just see her yellow hair
sexist douchbag
Is that because you never learned to read?
…And that photo of her in the dirty bathrobe..
way to illustrate her point.
Seriously, you need to take some reading lessons – life would be a lot better for you.
She fixed her teeth, though. Maybe that was just a matter of needing money to do it. I have no doubt industry people wanted her to fix her teeth.
I was having this conversation with a friend on Monday–we try to create this environment where our girls can be forward-thinking, open-minded, confident, fearless etc, and yet wonder if this isn’t setting up the biggest bait and switch of all time. Hard to imagine telling your daughter “you can be whatever you want to be, but you won’t be paid as much as your brother will for the same work.”
I hope we can once in for all have gender equality across the board. i hope I never get to say they to my daughter. I want her to be an equal.
I think Particia has great valid points and loved Meryl’s reaction to her Oscar speech ( j.lo I have no idea why she was sat next to her)
equal pay is the jugular!
I hope so too. I remember being astonished as a kid when the ERA finally died. I couldn’t understand who wouldn’t support that, why it wasn’t a given.
Despite my best efforts, my kids get a version of “reality” in the world of ballet, which is overwhelmingly female at all levels except management/senior artistic. They are so excited (and I am steeling myself) for Nutcracker casting announced today.
AND, my beautiful, fearless daughter has trouble finding guys who want beautiful, fearless girls. At her age, 21, they want hot, sexy, vapid girls. I keep telling her to date 30 year olds.
Bad advice in my opinion….a man in his 30’s that seeks out a 21 year old woman is generally too immature to appreciate women in his own age group who are going to be more educated, career achieved, worldly women compared to younger women. There are good men in her own age group. She just needs to sift through the dredge.
Interesting view on things.
but she obviously does not realize that the wage gap is not a monolith. she just repeats talking points from people interested in women, not in equality. young women actually outearn men and chidless women earn more than men by the way too. so its NOT a gender gap but a CHILD GAP.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/29/women-in-20s-earn-more-men-same-age-study-finds
in the united states (and most of the west) men are also discrimnated against the educational system, by 2030 it will be about 50% !!! more women in university in the US, so that will only get worse. which by the way is never a big topic and i dont see feminist being invested in making it equal, im sure there would be a big outcry if it was the other way round. why is this inequality seen as no problem?
Give me a break. Men are worse at school not because women are favoured but because women take their education more seriously but all of that means nothing when later men get the jobs and promotions while women are left behind.
did you read the article you linked?
“Ann Pickering, HR director at telecoms company O2, said the research highlighted that there is still a long way to go before genuine parity between women and men is achieved. “While women are earning slightly more than men in their 20s, they are still overtaken by men later in life – and the reason is simple. Women are playing catchup when it comes to reaching senior well-paid positions,” she said. “If women are not in the same roles as men, how can they be on the same wage?”
gender gap is still an issue, and the article doesn’t dispute that.
not to mention: “Women have been suffering [from the economic downturn] more than men because they had even less job security,” she said. “They were more at risk and thus worse hit when the recession struck.”
Um…how does that translate into no inequality between men and women?
dear, it was the other way around. Until at least 1990.
Is Ronda the new Mark? I noticed theres a distinct MRA flavor to a lot of your postings.
In what ways are men discriminated against in the educational system?
Men aren’t attending university in droves because they don’t need to. It’s a rational decision.
All they need is the experience, and they’re going to get the job whereas women are *required* to be credentialed to do the exact same thing.
Yeah why spend all the money is you don’t have to?
Then there are the male executives who bloviate about how they’re championing women executives in the workplace, will ensure that they are given equal opportunity to rise to executive positions, then routinely block their attempts by favouring men who despite not having the same credentials, work experience, etc. are “a better fit”. What the hell does “a better fit” mean? I was routinely overlooked for more senior positions in HR at a large entertainment company by my boss, the SVP of HR, because, in his words, he “didn’t want to lose the great work I was doing” specifically for him. Guess what? I caught him sending an email to his buddies in the company pretending to be me that was the most sexually vulgar and degrading thing I could imagine. The SVP of HR. The guy who was known as “Mr. Zero Tolerance” for workplace harassment.
So I sued his ass and got a big settlement. Take that Mr. Equal Opportunity.
That’s really awesome! And you hit him where it really hurt – his wallet!
I appreciate her message. I still think the situation boils down to UNITY – united we stand, divided we fall. If everyone were to stand up for equal pay and even equality for women across the board, more would get accomplished. It is everyone’s problem.
She didn’t even address ageism, the last allowable and completely ignored prejudice. I’m 53 and was just poking around for a job last year, testing the waters since I’d love to retire from teaching at 55 but would still have to work. I have a Masters degree and 25 years teaching 12th graders. I sent out hundreds of resumes. You know how many responses I got?
Zero. Zip. Zilch. I’m 53. I need to just go away. It’s absurd.
I’m so sorry Jib. 55 going on 56 and looking down the tunnel.
I was at one meeting where we were talking about recruiting new staff and my boss talked about attracting “young professionals” (I think he even mentioned the 40s decade). We work in a state institution! Wish I’d called him on it at the time. I did get word to him later that that kind of talk could get him in very big trouble.
Another guy my age I’ve known for years talking about a new assignment I’d picked up and telling me I was “the best man for the job”. Ironically I could tell he was internally cringing at having said that but just couldn’t stop himself and even repeated it. Sigh.
I’ve got guys half my age sending out my performance evaluations. I am the first to say I never wanted a management job. But this is making me want to vomit.
Interesting, and I like very much that she’s attempting to address the fragmentation on policy campaigning work and collective understanding for better which has come about due to too many conflating ‘liberation movements’ and ‘equality activism’ in the overarching drive for economic, social, and political access equality as always being co-existent and interchangeable. Ideally they do work in tandem but ought not to be careless lumped together as an assumed given. Those opposed to further of a better, equal, for all actually feed off the tendency for people to do so, thereby further undermining any collective efforts towards positive change.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BJG_CuyDSFMC&lpg=PA20&ots=cmgACGILdi&dq=liberation%20movement%20v%20equality%20groups%20theory&lr&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q&f=false
^^^one (long) read on some of the issues for anyone interested enough.
More like Arquette though at least trying to get to the nub of things with critical thought rather than platitude soundbites.