Gender Wage Gap Essay

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During her Oscar acceptance speech in 2015, Patricia Arquette made a statement that would stir America, declaring, "it's our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America". The gender wage gap is an issue that has been oppressing women of all careers for centuries. The average women tends to make seventy-seven percent of what her male coworkers make, even if she works and equal amount as her coworkers. This issue also exists in Hollywood's movie industry, in which the wage gap is even larger, and yet the women facing the gender wage gap work as much as their male costars. The gender wage gap is existent in Hollywood because of the patriarchy and hegemonic ideology that exists in the…show more content…
One example occurred when Jennifer Lawrence was under-payed for her role in the movie American Hustle. In this movie, Jennifer Lawrence received five points, and he costar, Amy Adams received seven points. However, their male costars each received nine points for their work. At the time of the movie, Jennifer Lawrence was a very popular actress in pop culture, and a recent Oscar winner, and Amy Adams had received more awards than all three of her male costar combined. Therefore, both women were highly successful and popular women who would greatly increase the popularity of the movie, and, as a result, should have received an equal payment to their male costars. However, an equal payment was not the case, and the studio was aware of this, but did not make any efforts to resolve this injustice. Another example of the gender wage gap that recently occurred can be seen through the circumstances of the actress Jenji Kohan, of the show Mad Men. Jenji Kohan had experienced gender inequality all of her life, one example being when her mother said she could not become a comedian because "women were not funny". Recently, she has discovered that her costar, Matthew Weiner, was paid a significant amount more than her, with no apparent reason behind a higher salary. Many say that this was due to Kohan not negotiating enough for her salary, but if Kohan had been facing injustice all her life, wouldn’t she be fighting for an equal

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