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Entertainment November 3, 2016
Top Hollywood actress Mila Kunis says she’s done compromising her integrity and ignoring the microaggressions of the industry’s “boy’s club.”
From dismissive attitudes to “lighthearted” comments, Mila Kunis argues in her letter on A Plus that women are “conditioned to believe [that] if we speak up, our livelihoods will be threatened … We don’t want to be kicked out of the sandbox for being a ‘bitch.’ So we compromise our integrity for the sake of maintaining the status quo and hope that change is coming.”
Microaggressions happen in multiple ways throughout the workplace. For Mila Kunis, a producer referred to her as “Ashton’s wife and baby momma.”
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“Yes it is only one small comment. But it’s these very comments that women deal with day in and day out in offices, on calls and in emails,” Kunis wrote. “Microaggressions that devalue the contributions and worth of hard-working women…What he characterized as a ‘lighthearted’ comment was actually deeply undermining to my contributions and ability to be taken seriously as a creative partner.”
Unfortunately, as she points out, she’s not the only woman to experience these subtle gender biases. Think of the times Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has criticized his opponent, Hillary Clinton, for her husband’s mistakes. Remember the Internet outrage when two-time Olympic bronze medalist Corey Cogdell was labeled as the “wife of a Bears linesman“?
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But now, the same question remains: How much are women willing to push back? For Mila Kunis, she acknowledges that she’s “fortunate” enough to have reached a place to stop compromising without fearing her financial security. For others, however, Kunis hopes that “bringing one more voice to the conversation [will help] women in the workplace feel a little less alone and more able to push back for themselves.”
