Equal Rights at the Oscars

Every year, the Oscars is inevitably an evening which consumes and dominates the internet, journalism, and social media; everything from potential winners, film reviews, and – of course – the predictable scrutiny of red carpet outfits.

However the woman of the night was definitely Patricia Arquette, who won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Richard Linklater’s film ‘Boyhood’.  Refreshingly, Arquette did not make headlines for the way she was styled or how many dress-sizes she had dropped, instead the actress used her acceptance speech to bravely speak out against gender inequality and unfair gender pay differences.  

Arquette ended her speech with the lines:

“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, 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.”

Later she justifies her actions, (as if they really needed justification):

“it’s time for women, equal means equal… it’s inexcusable that we go around the world and we talk about equal rights for women in other countries and we don’t have equal rights for women in America, and we don’t because when they wrote the constitution, they didn’t intend it for women.”

Reese Witherspoon also used the Oscars to promote gender equality. She used her #AskHerMore campaign – which encourages journalists to ask female actors more than just the predictable “Who are you wearing?” – to promote appreciation for women’s work, talent and creative endeavours, rather than the superficial media attention on actresses’ image and presentation that dominates awards season.

Meryl Streep’s enthusiastic reaction to Arquette, as well as sparking the creation of thousands of gifs overnight, highlighted that the “Patron Saint of Actresses”, and arguably one of the most respected people in Hollywood, also felt strongly that the norm of gender discrimination in her profession and her country must be challenged.

Last year’s leaked email scandal showed that major actresses are commonly being paid considerably less than their male counterparts. In a hack of Sony’s emails, it was revealed that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams were paid noticeably less than their male co-stars for their roles in ‘American Hustle’. It was also exposed that there was an almost $1 million gap in the salaries of the two co-presidents of production at Columbia Pictures, Michael De Luca and Hannah Minghella. One male, one female, no prizes for guessing who lost out.

The simple truth, is that, statistically, the gender pay gap has barely improved in over a decade. In 2013 women on average were still being paid 78% of what men were paid for similar employment.

What’s more, in 2012 Republican Senators blocked an attempt to expand on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act that Obama had signed in 2009, and (to quote the President) “put partisan politics ahead of American women and their families.

As we come up to International Women’s Day on Sunday 8th March, it is more important than ever that we address the lack of development of women’s rights under our noses and in our media. Hollywood is renowned for its glamour and wealth. However we need to look deeper and see that acceptance of such blatant gender discrimination from powerful and influential sources is detrimental to the progression of gender fairness across the world.

• gender equality
• patricia arquette
• the oscars