'I want to earn the same as Kevin' - 5 women fighting the Hollywood gender pay gap

A Machiavellian quest for power inside the White House marriage of Frank and Claire Underwood is at the heart of the hit TV series House of Cards.

But it turns out that Robin Wright, who plays America’s first lady in the show, has been forced to resort to some very political maneuvering herself in order to secure the same pay as her co-star, Kevin Spacey.

The perfect paradigm

The actress has revealed that she had to threaten to go public about being paid less in order to persuade studio bosses to pay her the same.

“It was the perfect paradigm. There are very few films or TV shows where the male, the patriarch, and the matriarch are equal. And they are in House of Cards,” Wright said, according to a report by the Huffington Post. “I was like: ‘I want to be paid the same as Kevin.’”

Wright has appeared in all 52 episodes of the political thriller and also worked as director on several. Both Wright and Spacey are listed as executive directors of the fifth series of the show.

The actress says she believes her earning power had been affected by having children, “Because I wasn’t working full-time, I wasn’t building my salary bracket. If you don’t build that … with notoriety and presence, you’re not in the game anymore. You become a B-list actor. You’re not box office material.

“You don’t hold the value you would have held if you had done four movies a year like Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett did during the time I was raising my kids. Now I’m kind of on a comeback at 50 years old.”

Speaking out

Robin Wright is the latest in a string of high-profile women to speak out about the Hollywood pay gap.

Patricia Arquette caused a stir at last year’s Oscars ceremony by calling for equal pay for women at the end of her acceptance speech for best supporting actress.

She used the most public of platforms to say that unequal pay had to end. “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s time to have wage equality once and for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

The disparity in Hollywood pay is sometimes put down to male-led films earning more at the box office. Yet research has found that, not only do female-led films earn big money, they bring in more than male-led ones.

‘I got mad at myself’

When Sony had its systems hacked, Jennifer Lawrence discovered that she had been paid significantly less than her male co-stars in American Hustle, despite her already being an Oscar winner.

She wrote a stinging article on the unfairness embedded in the system, writing that she got "mad at herself" because her need “to be liked” and the fear of seeming “difficult” or “spoiled” kept her from demanding more money.

Unequal opportunity

While research shows the box office power of female-led films, it also highlights how little women are given the opportunity to take the lead, or even have a speaking part.

Gender of Speaking Characters by Media Platform in Recent Hollywood Film and Television

There is a gender age gap too. Recent research from Polygraph found that men over 42 had 44% of male dialogue in films while women over 42 only had 23% of female dialogue.

The same research found that in 78% of the films analysed, the lead character was male.

‘Difficult Divas’

Emma Watson, another big Hollywood name, has spoken out about women being pressured into accepting the status quo.

She told Esquire UK, “We are not supposed to talk about money, because people will think you’re ‘difficult’ or a ‘diva. But there’s a willingness now to be like, 'Fine. Call me a "diva", call me a "feminazi", call me "difficult", call me a "First World feminist", call me whatever you want, it’s not going to stop me from trying to do the right thing and make sure that the right thing happens.’”

Sharon Stone has spoken out about how difficult the situation was for her as the star of the Hollywood hit Basic Instinct in 1992. She recalls weeping over unequal salaries. “No one wanted to pay me. I remember sitting in my kitchen with my manager and just crying and saying: ‘I’m not going to work until I get paid.’ I still got paid so much less than any men.”

Stone says Hollywood pay equality isn’t just about wealthy women getting more. “It has to start with regular pay, not just for movie stars, but regular pay for the regular woman in the regular job.”

More than two decades later, it appears that many attitudes have not changed. Rooney Mara, the Oscar-nominated star of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, revealed that male co-stars had earned double her salary.

“To me, the thing that’s more unfair than the pay is the terminology that’s used to describe actresses who have a point of view, and want to have a voice in their life and their career, and what they choose to do,” she said. “I’ve been called horrible things. If a man was acting in the same way that I was acting, it would just be considered normal. To me, that’s the thing I find so frustrating is calling women spoiled brats and bitches. We just want to have a voice in our life, and I don’t think that’s anything that shouldn’t be encouraged in any human.

Hollywood's pay levels may seem like a distant concern for most working people, but they reflect a widespread disparity between how much men and women are paid.

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