Patricia Arquette, who won the best supporting actress award for 
Boyhood, gave an impassioned acceptance speech at the Oscars on Sunday February 22.
Starting out in a conventional manner with Arquette thanking her fellow cast members, family and boyfriend Eric White, the actress then rousingly addressed the women of the USA with these words:
“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 audience reception was animated, with both Jennifer Lopez and Meryl Streep cheering her on.
As is the case in many industries, equal pay between male and female employees is unbalanced in the Hollywood film industry. Hacked Sony emails revealed that Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence was paid only 7 percent of American Hustle’s profits, when her male co-stars were on a 9 percent deal.
In January 2015, Charlize Theron demanded she be paid the same as co-star Chris Hemsworth for The Huntsman – a sequel to 2012’s Snow White and The Huntsman.
Tom Phelan is an assistant editor at HRreview. Prior to this position, Tom was a staff writer at ITProPortal, where he travelled the globe in pursuit of the latest tech developments. He also writes for a variety of music blogs.
