Jennifer Lawrence published an essay in Lena Dunham’s newsletter Lenny regarding equal pay for actors and actresses.
As part of the Sony hack last year, it was revealed that Lawrence and Amy Adams were getting 7% of American Hustle‘s backend profits, while Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, Jeremy Renner, and director David O. Russell were receiving 9%. Lawrence was an Oscar nominee for her role.
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.
…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.”
Lawrence acknowledged that she was in a privileged position, but did also point out that equal pay is a huge issue and that society places blame on women for not advocating for themselves when it has been normalized for women to earn less.
“It’s hard for me to speak about my experience as a working woman,” she writes, “because I can safely say my problems aren’t exactly relatable.” After all, she is currently the highest-paid actress in the world, having made $52 million by August 2015.