Speaking to an audience of students in Los Angeles ahead of the release of her new film The Homesman, Swank said her earnings would be dramatically higher if she were a man.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Hilary Swank: male actors earn 10 times more than female
Speaking to an audience of students in Los Angeles ahead of the release of her new film The Homesman, Swank said her earnings would be dramatically higher if she were a man.
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The fact that females are still being paid significantly less than males for the same job is utterly disgusting. I don't care if you are a feminist, or not. A job is a job, and gender should not determine a paycheck. Quality and quantity of the work should determine paychecks... or maybe hour worked. What a concept! Hollywood continually disappoints me in their lack of respect for women and people in general. This is why I hope to stay away from Hollywood.
I think it is sad that to this day, women are still being paid less for the same amount of work. Both men and women are equally important and skilled, but men clearly earn more than women in our society. I don't know exactly the reasoning behind it other than the entertainment industry is somewhat sexist. I'm not sure if these patterns are ever going to improve or one day become equal. I think it's just a part of the industry that hasn't changed over the years and there is no need to do so now. Women and men should in theory both be compensated equally, but gender often gets in the way.
Even a 2:1 pay ratio between men and women is an absurd level of pay disparity, let alone 10:1, whatever the case may be in how the true ratio works itself out. I think that it is difficult to actually determine the true ratio though, because while you may be able to compare what men and women are being paid for in the same types of roles, there are also less opportunities for women to have leading roles, which the article addresses briefly. The fact that there is a bigger disparity in the entertainment industry than in others, is really disappointing.
This is really frustrating just because I feel like there's not even anything near a logical basis for this wage gap. I just can't wrap my mind around the reasoning that would prompt producers of huge hollywood movies to be paying less to female actors. Is there some kind of old budgeting template that they simply haven't retired yet? I wish the reasoning could be exposed, because I'm honestly really curious to know why EXACTLY this is happening. Whether it's a 10:1 ratio or a 2:1 ratio, what is going on in Hollywood?
Yes, it is awful that the top 10 paid actresses are paid about half as well as the top 10 paid actors, but I think that this is more a symptom of a larger problem than it is the root of the problem. Income inequality between the genders has always been an issue in this country, throughout almost all fields of work. Yeah, it might not be right that the top 10 paid actresses made a little more than half of what the top 10 paid actors made, but that number is still $226 million. So personally, though I believe in income equality, my focus would definitely be with the higher social problems that lie deep within this country, so that all women everywhere get paid equally, not just some of the richest women.
Yes women should get paid as much as men for the same job. Does anyone still need to make that argument? I haven't seen this movie yet, but I assume Tommy Lee Jones gets top billing? All I want to point out is that means he gets paid the most. Should it be 10 times more? Hell no, but the way production budgets are set up, in most cases, one big name actor is going to take home the most money, because that's what the producers are selling. Now, a huge part of the problem, and Ms. Swank alludes to this, is that not enough movies put a female actor in that top spot. Even worse, not enough movies are really about women. Everyone remembers the Bechdel Test, right? More films need to be made by women for women, and I think this has to start at the Producer level. As Ms. Swank moves on in her career, I hope she will, like so many of her male counterparts do, turn some of her skill and notoriety towards producing and bring to our screens the kinds of movies that we should be making that don't just pay lip service to feminism while perpetuating the prejudicial imbalance that pervades nearly every workplace in our economy.
Just an aside, I have to say I think that really it's the male actors who should be making half as much, rather than female actors making twice. In general, I think we pay all of these people way too much money as it is.
I'm a bit torn over this article. The majority of me sees the bigger picture and realizes that it just isn't right that men get paid so much more than women do on average for literally the same work. And this isn't just in the movie industry, it's statistically relevant all over the world. On the other hand, a part of me was particularly rustled when I read about how Hillary Swank was talking about how much MORE she would be making if she were a man. Equality issues aside, you're still making so much damn money! I know she's not complaining that she doesn't make enough money, she's more complaining about how the equality isn't there, but it still came off a bit like she could have made so much more than her already meager sum of money.
This sounds pretty disgusting since the article's title. I really hate how many times in life I heard about this kind of awful stories and it keeps happening everyday over and over, again and again. Like I don't understand why this never goes away, as same as descrimination , racists and gender issues. What century is this? Do we just have all technologies that serves the modern centuries but people's minds are still living in the Stone age?
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