Jennifer Lawrence Tackles Gender Pay Inequality in New Essay

Jennifer Lawrence is an actress who’s known for saying exactly what’s on her mind and now she’s speaking out about her personal experience with sexism in Hollywood.

Back when the infamous Sony hack, that exposed thousands of emails and files from within the company, took place it was revealed that the actress was paid less than her male American Hustle co-stars, Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner.

Now Lawrence is using her experience from the debacle as a testament to women everywhere, expressing her feelings on the pay snub and gender inequality as a whole in Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter.

Take a look at an excerpt from Jenn’s honest and thought-provoking essay below:

“It’s hard for me to speak about my experience as a working woman because I can safely say my problems aren’t exactly relatable. 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. I didn’t want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don’t need. (I told you it wasn’t relatable, don’t hate me).

“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?”

You can read Jennifer’s full essay here.

Do you think the actress raises some good points? Talk to us in the comments below.

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  1. Jennifer is right. Women don’t want to be seen as difficult or not lovable, that’s the root of all problems . Be tough ladies n get your fair share.