Why Women Make Less (And How To Fight Back)
The Hollywood Reporter|March 15, 2017

A Day Without a Woman? It’s all nice, writes a top producer and former agent, but real change comes in the art of the deal and the confidence to jump around.

Gavin Polone
Why Women Make Less (And How To Fight Back)

I know from reading the trade websites that many in Hollywood observed A Day Without a Woman on March 8 — though I did see several females at the studio and network I visited that day. The talent agencies certainly treated it as a special event, which makes sense, since all of them have women at the pinnacle of their management committees. (That’s true, right? I didn’t dream it, did I?) In any case, this honoring of females caused me to think about how ridiculous it is that in 2017, women, or any other group of people, should be paid less for the same job — save for guys with comb-overs, since they absolutely should get less.

While the result of this inequity is simple to understand, the sources are not as clear. This isn’t like the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, where the cause of the problem is straightforward: that the film Academy’s electorate is mostly Caucasian, old and rich. Certainly, with regard to the topic of equal pay for women, the old, rich, white guy power structure could play a part, but contract negotiations largely are about perceived leverage, and female actors have more leverage now than ever, as do women who write, produce and work as executives. And still, their pay is not equal to that of men. While many headlines decry the situation, I haven’t read any articles that explain why this problem persists nor any offering a solution — probably because nobody fully understands why this dilemma exists in the first place.

This story is from the March 15, 2017 edition of The Hollywood Reporter.

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This story is from the March 15, 2017 edition of The Hollywood Reporter.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.