Hollywood Millionaire Demands Equal Pay at Oscars

At the Academy Awards, Patricia Arquette won the Oscar for best supporting actress for “Boyhood.” Then rather than just making the traditional expressions of gratitude, she made a left turn into politics.

The millionaire actress used her acceptance speech to promote the myth that women in the workplace are largely paid less than men for the same jobs.

“To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation,” Arquette said, after thanking the academy and her costars, “we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

Arquette may think women are being paid less than men in spite of the 1963 law that requires equal pay, but the pay gap construct is a charade many on the left continue to promote [1].

Forbes [2] has explained that the statistic cited by many feminist groups as well as the media is inherently flawed saying, “The wage gap statistic, however, doesn’t compare two similarly situated co-workers of different sexes, working in the same industry, performing the same work, for the same number of hours a day.  It merely reflects the median earnings of all men and women classified as full-time workers.” In other words, it is not an apples-to-apples comparison. There are huge differences including types of work and number of hours worked.

Some liberals have been honest enough to call the claims a “lie,” like Hanna Rosin at Slate.com has. Rosin said it was time to stop repeating the nonsense.

Arquette, part of a long-standing showbiz family, is worth $24 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth [3]. Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez, who were shown cheering wholeheartedly for Arquette’s rant, are worth $45 million and $300 million, respectively.

But even her Oscars plea wasn’t enough to satisfy the left. Liberal blog The New Republic [4] criticized Arquette for not finding the time to advocate a living wage during her speech too.