Why Mila Kunis publicly slammed Hollywood sexism

Mila Kunis: In an open letter, the actress writes of being 'insulted, sidelined, paid less, creatively ignored, and otherwise diminished based on my gender.'

|
David J. Phillip/AP/File
Actress Mila Kunis watches during the seventh inning of Game 4 of the National League baseball championship series between the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016, in Los Angeles.

Mila Kunis hopes that sharing her experiences with gender discrimination will make a difference for other women.

The Hollywood actress, who recently appeared in "Bad Moms," took to Medium on Wednesday to discuss the bias she has experienced as a woman in the film industry. She wrote that it took her years to realize that what she was experiencing – from insults to threats – were signs of sexism, and that she “was complicit in allowing it to happen” because she didn’t stand up against it.

Though the film industry is an elite sphere, the struggle for gender equity is universal. Hollywood stars like Ms. Kunis may help shine a light on the issues – and give women courage in their quest to address the discrimination they face.

“If this is happening to me, it is happening more aggressively to women everywhere,” wrote Kunis, adding that she hoped her experiences would “[bring] one more voice to the conversation so that women in the workplace feel a little less alone and more able to push back for themselves.”

Kunis details two specific instances of discrimination she has experienced during her career. The first came when a producer threatened her with the end of her career after she refused to pose semi-naked on the cover of a men’s magazine, telling her “You’ll never work in this town again.”

“Guess what?” she asks in her post. “The world didn’t end. The film made a lot of money and I did work in this town again, and again, and again.” 

Now, she notes, she is fortunate to be able to speak out without worrying about “how I will put food on my table," an issue that many women who face discrimination may struggle with.

Combating bias and changing the way that women are viewed was important to Kunis, so she and three other women founded a production company, Orchard Farm Productions, that aimed to bring “unique voices and perspectives” to cable and broadcast TV. 

But the sexist attitudes continued. While their company was pitching a show to a major network, one producer sent an email to try and get executives to sign on by focusing exclusively on Kunis’s “relationship to a successful man and … ability to bear children," writes Kunis. As a result, she and her colleagues "withdrew [their] involvement in the project."

These experiences, she suggests, may be common to all women — whoever and wherever they are.

One universal issue: equal pay. Jennifer Lawrence highlighted the disparity last year, after the Sony email hacks revealed that her male co-stars made 9 percent of back end sales, while she and Amy Adams received 7 percent. 

Kunis cites a September study from the American Association of University Women, which predicts that the pay gap will not close until 2152. As women entered the workforce in huge numbers in the 1980s and 1990s, they also began to be paid better. However, “in the last 15 years, progress on closing the pay gap has stalled,” the study finds.

With the post, Kunis adds her voice to a substantial chorus of women in Hollywood calling for gender equity. Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, and Emma Watson are all UN Women Goodwill Ambassadors, working to improve conditions for women worldwide. Sandra Bullock has been working to change popular perceptions of which film roles are appropriate for women, taking on several roles originally written for George Clooney. And Hollywood actresses may have inspired California legislators, who passed the toughest equal pay legislation nationwide in October of last year.

“From this point forward, when I am confronted with one of these comments, subtle or overt, I will address them head on; I will stop in the moment and do my best to educate,” Kunis promised.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why Mila Kunis publicly slammed Hollywood sexism
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/2016/1103/Why-Mila-Kunis-publicly-slammed-Hollywood-sexism
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe