The gender wage gap has always been a big subject of debate and to be quite honest it’s ridiculous that we’re still talking about it. Despite the 1970’s Equal Pay Act, which “prohibits any less favourable treatment between men and women in terms of pay and conditions of employment” women still earn 22% less than their male counterparts. So for every £1 earned by their male counterparts women get just 78p, essentially women are working for free for two hours a day. That means with male earnings averaging £39,136 and women’s earnings averaging £30,612, there is a huge difference of £8,524. Therefore the gender pay gap will cost a woman in the UK on average more than £100,000 over the course of her career.
How is it still acceptable in 2015 for gender inequality to exist? We all know that women can do everything men can do. If not better? In August this year, it was reported that young women, yet again, had outperformed young men at both GCSE and A-level. Meaning that 27,000 more young women were set to start university than young men.
Many famous women have spoken out about the gender wage gap but my personal favourite is Jennifer Lawrence. She fought back when it emerged that she earned less than her male counterparts in Oscar-nominated hit American Hustle. Jen told Elle Magazine ‘If you’re doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way.’
Last year, emails were leaked between Sony executives revealing that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams, the female leads in American Hustle, received less than their male co-stars. From the American Hustle cast, the women got seven per cent shares of the profits while the three male leads Bradley Cooper, Chrisitan Bale and Jeremy Renner, got nine per cent. That hardly seems fair? The news caused outrage amongst the public and many other leading ladies who then demanded that Lawrence was paid an equal amount to male lead Chris Hemsworth in their next film Snow White And The Huntsman.
After all the backlash and publicity that Lawrence got with her pay in American Hustle it emerged that she will be one of the few movie stars that can command a whopping $20million fee per film. For her next film Passengers, it has been reported that Jennifer Lawrence will receive double what Guardians Of The Galaxy leading man, Chris Pratt, will receive.
Recently, the World’s Highest Paid Actresses 2015 list came out and unsurprisingly Jennifer Lawrence has topped it with $52 million pre tax. If you compare this to the World’s Highest Paid Actor’s of 2015 list, Robert Downey Jr. smashes her out the park with $80 million. Only four actresses made more than $20 million, while 21 actors raked in $20 million-plus.
Some would argue that women earn less than men as they take time out of their careers to bring up their children and are less demanding of raises. But look at Lawrence, she is a perfect example of how this is just not true, I agree in some cases this may be more relevant but Lawrence is a single, childless, extremely talented and she somehow still got short-changed.
References
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/26/gender-pay-gap-david-cameron
http://english.sina.com/entertainment/p/2013/0224/564910.html