Image adapted from the photo by Red Carpet Report on Mingle Media TV via CC BY-SA 2.0.
In the Oct. 13 edition of Lenny, a newsletter founded by Lena Dunham, Jennifer Lawrence spoke out on Hollywood’s pay inequality in her essay “Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars?”
The essay described Lawrence’s experience when she realized that she and her co-star, Amy Adams, were paid less than their male co-stars for the film American Hustle. Pay information was revealed in the midst of 2014’s Sony hack.
“When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn’t get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early,” writes Lawrence in her essay.
Since its publishing, this essay has been appraised for shedding light on the existence of a gender wage gap in Hollywood, which resurfaces a conversation about unequal pay in general.
However, though Lawrence strikes conversation within the realm of gender wage gaps, one of the more notable issues discussed in her essay, and may very well contribute to the problem of gender pay inequality, is her self-reflection on the reason she chose not to speak up at the time that she received her pay cheque for the film.
“But if I’m honest with myself, I would be lying if I didn’t say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didn’t want to seem ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled.’ At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn’t worry about being ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled.’ This could be a young-person thing. It could be a personality thing. I’m sure it’s both. But this is an element of my personality that I’ve been working against for years, and based on the statistics, I don’t think I’m the only woman with this issue. Are we socially conditioned to behave this way? We’ve only been able to vote for what, 90 years? I’m seriously asking—my phone is on the counter and I’m on the couch, so a calculator is obviously out of the question. Could there still be a lingering habit of trying to express our opinions in a certain way that doesn’t ‘offend’ or ‘scare’ men?”
Lawrence continues to describe a negative experience she had when she tried to be assertive at work, and she mentions an email that was leaked during the Sony hack in which a producer referred to a lead actress as a “spoiled brat” for actively negotiating.
In an article published by Business Insider, it was revealed that research shows “that women are significantly less likely to negotiate for higher salaries then men.”
The New Yorker has published multiple articles on the topic. In one article entitled “How to Attack the Gender Wage Gap? Speak Up,” writer Jessica Bennett examined the reluctance of women to negotiate pay, and how this can contribute to the wage gap.
In her article, Bennett mentions an experience she once had working for Newsweek, when she discovered that she was being paid less than her male counterparts.
“When I tried to figure out why my salary was comparatively lower, it occurred to me: couldn’t I have simply asked for more? The problem was that I was terrified at the prospect. When I finally mustered up the nerve, I made my pitch clumsily, my voice shaking and my face beet red.”
The article also mentions research that has shown that women are less likely to negotiate than men for fear of being perceived as aggressive or unlikeable—the reason being that women are, in fact, actually perceived negatively when they negotiate in the workplace. This is in contrast to their male co-workers, who are perceived as agreeable or even leader-like when speaking up.
In another article published by The New Yorker entitled “Speaking While Female,” more research was discussed showing that women are more likely to be penalized or frowned upon when speaking-up in the workplace, while men are encouraged to do so. As a result, women have conditioned themselves to stay silent, in fear of punishment.
With that, Lawrence’s essay digs deeper than just a commentary on the wage gap. Lawrence’s struggle to speak up as a woman is something that many women experience, and is part of a larger sociological issue that stems beyond paycheques and numbers.