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Tag: Sexism

  • “The Danish Girl”: Alicia Vikander Talks Sexism

    The Danish Girl has enjoyed critical and audience acclaim as one of the best films of the year.

    So far, The Danish Girl has even earned nominations from the Screen Actors Guild for this year’s SAG awards.

    The Danish Girl holds nominations in two major categories: Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor for Eddie Redmayne, and Outstanding Performance by a female actor for Alicia Vikander.

    Of course, The Danish Girl is only one of the films that have helped make a name for new Hollywood girl-of-the-moment Alicia Vikander.

    Besides The Danish Girl, Alicia Vikander has recently starred in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Ex Machina and Testament of Youth, all of which are great films.

    Alicia Vikander recently sat down with The Huffington Post to talk about what it has been like for her to navigate the ins and outs of Hollywood life.

    She said, “I’ve had a very exciting year with so many new experiences, so many firsts. It’s been nerve racking. Just a whirlwind, that’s left me very thrilled.”

    Of course, along with being able to do amazing films like The Danish Girl, there sometimes comes a certain expectation of the women in showbusiness. Luckily for Vikander, that seems to be changing.

    She said of those expectations, “It’s hard. When I was a young teenager and bought magazines, I’d look at those photos and think that was the only reality. I’m still new to publicity, but I’m lucky because I am past 20 and have had a chance to mature.”

    She added, “When I step out on the carpet, it’s after three hours of somebody doing my make up and hair and even I can be surprised at how good and professional they are. I mean right now I am in my sneakers and my woolen knitted sweater and a pair of track pants and they never put that on the cover and I sometimes wish they would, but they never do.”

    Don’t we all wish they would?

    What do you think of The Danish Girl‘s Alicia Vikander and her comments on reality vs. Hollywood expectations?

  • Sandra Bullock on Hollywood Sexism: “I’m Glad They Got Caught”

    There’s been a lot of talk recently about the gender pay gap, and though it’s an issue all over the country, its existence in Hollywood has come to the forefront – due to the high visibility of the women involved.

    For Sandra Bullock, sure, it’s about the money. But Hollywood sexism is much deeper than that.

    “It’s a bigger issue than money. I know we’re focused on the money part right now. That’s just a byproduct,” said Bullock in a recent Variety article.

    She goes on to describe blatant sexism she experienced while filming a movie about a decade ago (no specifics on which film), calling it the “worst experience [she’s] ever had.”

    My mother basically raised me as, “Women can do everything men can do. Don’t get married. Blaze your own trail.” And I didn’t think others thought any differently. I always thought we are all equal, and we are. I was actually doing a film about 10 years ago, and I found myself yelling and being angry. And I was like, “What is happening to me?” I was literally fearful. And I realized, it’s because I’m female. It dawned on me. At that day and age, at that point in my career, it was the worst experience I ever had.

    I was destroyed, because you can’t unsee something. Was I so naïve up to this point to actually think that I was on an equal level with everybody? It was the way I was being treated, because I was female, versus the way others were being treated. It took me a while. It took a year and a half, where I regrouped, and thought, “Okay, this is an isolated case.” I’ve had other subtle experiences, but nothing that blatant. It was a big eye opener, because it wasn’t just men on women. A lot if came from women as well. The blessing of that film was that it opened my eyes.

    Bullock is one of many Hollywood leading ladies to speak up on this as of late. Sienna Miller recently talked about being paid much less than her male co-star in q Broadway play, and Jennifer Lawrence recently made headlines with an essay on this problem. In a piece called Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars, Lawrence said she was mad at herself when she realized she was being paid less than her male counterparts.

    Some stars aren’t as willing to discuss it, however.

  • Kristin Wiig ‘Bummed Out’ By Sexist Comments About All-Female Ghostbusters Movie

    With all the talk about how there should be more roles for women in Hollywood, one would think that making all-female or female-led versions of certain male-dominated films would be a brilliant idea that everybody could be behind.

    That’s why the recent backlash against the movie came as a surprise to funnywoman Kristen Wiig – like many people in the film industry, the SNL alum thought that the move to reprise the ‘80s cult classic with an all-female cast would generate positive feedback from a public that’s been clamoring for gender equality in film and television.

    The movie, which has started production and is set to be released in 2016, stars Wiig, Bridesmaids co-star Melissa McCarthy as well as SNL cast mates Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. With the immense success of Bridesmaids, Wiig said she was “bummed out” by the degree of negative attention that it has garnered especially on the Internet.

    In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Wiig said, “The fact there was so much controversy because we were women was surprising to me.”

    Apparently, an online campaign against the female-led remake has been launched by individuals who claim to be avid fans of the original film.

    “Some people said some really not nice things about the fact that there were women,” Wiig added.

    Even Bridesmaids director Paul Feig was not spared from the backlash. When he sat down with the Hollywood Reporter in March, he said that he was appalled at the hostility directed at him on social media soon after the film announcement was made.

    In his words, the reactions he got were “some of the most vile, misogynistic shit I’ve ever seen in my life”.

    There’s good news, though, for Ghostbusters purists. Joining Kristen Wiig and the gang in the film are some of the original cast members including Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Annie Potts, and Sigourney Weaver.

  • Olivia Wilde Is Blaming ‘Pure Sexism’ For Political Attacks On Hillary Clinton, ‘It’s Ridiculous’

    Olivia Wilde is blaming “pure sexism” for political attacks on Hillary Clinton.

    In the midst of battle for equal pay by females in the film industry, Wilde is speaking out against sexism on the campaign trail.

    According to People magazine, the 31-year-old actress calling out the people who she believes are criticizing Hillary Clinton based on her gender, not her merit.

    “It’s pure sexism,” she told the Daily Beast. “This bulls— about her not seeming ‘warm’ enough is pure misogyny.

    “It’s ridiculous,” she continued. “I think she’s one of the loveliest, most personable politicians I’ve ever met – much warmer than other politicians, in fact. That’s pure sexism.”

    Wilde encourages voters to be more concerned with Clinton’s political record, which Wilde says “speaks for itself,” rather than how she looks or acts.

    “She’s an incredibly skilled debater and her intelligence and experience speaks for itself,” Wilde said. “That’s the thing about Hillary – when people stop scheming to take her down with bulls—-, her actual resume speaks for itself.”

    The Meadowland actress has upped her support for the presidential hopeful in the past months. She not only introduced Clinton at a campaign event back in June, she has also defended her pick for president on Twitter.

    Do you think Olivia Wilde is correct in her assumption that attacks on Hillary Clinton are based on sexism?

  • Jessica Mendoza Gets An Apology, MLB’s First Female Analyst Victim Of Sexist Twitter Attack

    Atlanta sports radio host, Mike Bell, apologized to Jessica Mendoza after his sexist comment on Twitter about her position as a Major League Baseball analyst.

    “What I said was hurtful and I wanna [sic] take this opportunity to say to Jessica that what I said was dumb, and there’s just no place for it, and I apologize for putting that garbage on Twitter,” Bell said.

    Last Tuesday, Mendoza made history as the first female analyst for MLB. And unlike other analysts who were bashed because of their style or opinion, Mendoza was criticized because of her gender.

    Bell said in his post, “Really? A women’s softball slugger as guest analyst on MLB Wildcard Game? Once again ESPN too frigging cute for their own good.” He then followed another post saying, “You guys are telling me there isn’t a more qualified Baseball player ESPN can use than a softball player? Gimme a break!”

    Mendoza said she saw the posts but chose to ignore the insults. Meanwhile, Bell was suspended from his daily radio show The Game on 92.9 for two weeks. “I accept his apology,” Jessica Mendoza said. “To me, it really was about the fact that he came after me because I was a woman.” “I feel very confident… I’m looking forward to the future,” she continued.

    This was not the first time Mendoza received negative feedback for being a female sports analyst.

    She was also bashed for being the first woman in the booth for an ESPN MLB broadcast during a match-up between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the St. Louis Cardinals in August.

    Despite the backlash she got from other viewers, a lot of people offered positive comments to Mendoza. ESPN stated that it would continue to support her as well.

    Jessica Mendoza, on the other hand, said that she’s looking forward to the day when women would be judged for their qualifications and not their gender.

    “Yes, I am a female, but I want it to get to the point where, let’s think about what I am saying, what I am doing, and not so much the sex that I am,” Mendoza said.

  • Carey Mulligan Says ‘Suffragettes’ May Help To Correct Imbalance Between Men And Women

    Carey Mulligan Says ‘Suffragettes’ May Help To Correct Imbalance Between Men And Women

    After giving birth to her first child three weeks ago, Carey Mulligan appeared in the star-studded premiere of Suffragette in London.

    The film is about a campaign in support of women’s voting rights in the UK. It features stories that tackle issues on female empowerment and gender equality.

    Mulligan plays the role of a laundress named Maud Watts who joins the suffragettes’ campaign after years of doing laundry for other people. Her story is the focal point of the drama, specifically her journey in joining the campaign.

    “It doesn’t feel like a documentary about the past, it feels like a film about today. I always felt its resonance was about where we are now, and its achievement is to mark what these women did, and what they gave to us. Of course, we still live in a sexist society, but the film allows us to look at where we are today,” Mulligan said. Mulligan said that becoming a mother made the film “more poignant.” Being part of this project made her ponder not just on the current situation but the future as well. She said that she remains hopeful that the film will inspire the change that the world has yet to see, although she also admitted it would still take a while before women will be deemed equal to men.

    “Hopefully this film will inspire everyone in the way they view the world. We are an unbalanced society – women and men – and films like this inspire conversations about how we can correct that imbalance,” Mulligan also said.

    According to Mulligan, what’s important is that the society has started working towards that goal.

    “It’s slow and steady. We are optimistic that things need to change and brilliant actresses like Jennifer Lawrence are making enormous amounts of money at the box office and Hollywood is starting to realize there might be something in it.”

  • Claire Danes: My Body Is Monitored

    Claire Danes is the latest in a long line of Hollywood actresses who are speaking up about sexism in Hollywood. The Homeland star told People recently, “I feel like my body is monitored and commented on infinitely more than my male counterparts.”

    Danes then related a particular incident that exemplifies her point.

    “I remember a couple of Emmys ago, Lena Dunham and I were on the carpet together. We were singled out and criticized for having different body types – I was too skinny and she was too big,” Claire Danes said. “She is a dear friend of mine, and it made me angry because this is just how we are.”

    Danes hit the nail on the head, saying, “We just take it for granted that it’s acceptable and we really internalize that as normal and fine, and it’s not.”


    Claire Danes’ character on Homeland, Carrie Mathison, had a baby. Danes herself was also pregnant during the filming of a recent season, but not a season that corresponded to Mathison’s pregnancy. Danes spoke about how being pregnant affected shooting scenes.

    “I was very anxious about my pregnancy because I was responsible for this huge show, and I didn’t want to let anyone down at work, but I had this other major project of growing a person,” Danes said. “I was mindful of what I was eating because I didn’t want to look pregnant.”

    Claire Danes baby, Cyrus, “is a Homeland baby through and through,” she says.

    “He loves it. A set is such a playground for a kid,” Danes says. “He loved the ops room in the last season because he loved the lights and the screens and the levers to pull. That was also a bit of a joke – little tiny Cyrus in the ops room, saving the world from Armageddon!”

  • Madonna: Age Questions Are Sexist; Cooking Questions Are Not

    Madonna is still the reigning Queen of Pop, even though she’s getting stiff competition in that arena. At 56 years of age, she shows no sign of stopping, but don’t ask her about her age.

    “To me it’s a sexist thing to ask why I keep going,” Madonna told Entertainment Weekly. “No one said to Picasso when he was 80, ‘why are you painting?’”

    Why does Madonna think asking her that is sexist?

    “Because he’s a man and nobody asked him that,” Madonna insists. “But because I’m a woman, people ask me. Does anyone ask Mick Jagger why he keeps going on tour?”

    Well, yes. They ask Mick Jagger that. But Madonna apparently has never read that.

    She does, however, have a lot to say about how she manages to stay is such great shape for her tours. Madonna says she eats a lot.

    “I eat anything I can get my hands on,” Madonna said. “I have to keep eating so I have energy. I eat food, you know normal food. Omelettes for breakfast. Healthy lunches, and things like that, but I’m also supplementing that with power shakes in those energy bars.”

    How does a megastar like Madonna manage to eat well when she stays so busy?

    “I have a woman who follows me around. I called her the food police. ‘Are you eating? Did you drink enough water?’”

    Does Madonna cook for herself? That’s not a sexist question, honest.

    “Cooking is not one of my talents, I’m sorry to say,” Madonna reveals. “Everyone asked me that, including my 14-year-old son Rocco, who is absolutely not satisfied with all of my accomplishments. He just wants me to cook for him. I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll get to that. I promise you, when this tour is over with, I’m going to cook for you.’”

  • Emma Thompson Serves Up Four-Letter Words Over Hollywood Sexism

    Emma Thompson is not impressed with how Hollywood handles women, especially women of a certain age. And that age is not nearly as high as you might think. Add to that the expectations and “beauty standards” that actresses are expected to meet, and Emma Thompson is actually a little pissed off.

    “I think it’s still completely shit actually,” Thompson candidly informed Radio Times. “I don’t think there’s any appreciable improvement and I think that for women, the question of how they are supposed to look is worse than it was even when I was young. So, no, I am not impressed at all.”

    A classic example of how what Emma Thompson is so fired up about works in Hollywood was brought to light this year by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

    “I’m 37,” Gyllenhaal said, “and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55. It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh.”

    The practice of getting younger actresses to play older roles runs contrary to what had long been the classic wisdom in film and theatre. Used to be, you got an actor to play down in age. The logic was that this person had already been through that part of life and could represent it accurately and with honesty.

    But now Hollywood swings the other way, putting looks above experience and skill. Story lines pairing younger actresses with older leading men are quite common.

    Emma Stone recently addressed this. Stone herself has been the beneficiary of such castings. But she won’t be young forever.

    “It’s rampant in Hollywood and it’s definitely been that way for a long time, both culturally and in movies,” Stone says. “But in Irrational Man, the film is contingent upon the age difference; the movie is about that disparity. And when I did Magic in the Moonlight, Colin Firth and I talked about the gap which was huge, absolutely, because he was born the same year as my dad,” Stone says.

    As for Thompson, her latest film, The Legend of Barney Thompson, casts her as older. Thompson is only 56, but was cast as a 77-year-old woman.

    “It would be really nice to get someone who is actually 77 to play her,” Thompson said, “but it’s a wildly comic role and I couldn’t resist.”

    The occasional role cast younger is one thing, but Hollywood seems to have a deep-seated issue with older actresses now.

    “When I was younger,” Emma Thompson says, “I really did think we were on our way to a better world and when I look at it now, it is in a worse state than I have known it, particularly for women and I find that very disturbing and sad.”

    “So I get behind as many young female performers as I can and actually a lot of the conversations I have with them are about exactly the fact that we are facing and writing about the same things and nothing has changed, and that some forms of sexism and unpleasantness to women have become more entrenched and indeed more prevalent.”

  • J.K. Rowling Calls Out ‘Idiot’ on Twitter for Serena Williams Diss

    J.K. Rowling Calls Out ‘Idiot’ on Twitter for Serena Williams Diss

    J.K. Rowling is a tennis fan. When the famed author of “Harry Potter” took to Twitter on Saturday to express her love for Serena Williams, many agreed with her.

    Rowling tweeted:

    #SerenaSlam! I love her. What an athlete, what a role model, what a woman!

    While there were some on Twitter who were not quite as effusive in their praise of Serena Williams, there was a generally civil discussion of her merits.

    But the headline-grabbing moment came when one user, based in the UK, challenged Rowling’s opinion of Williams.

    Rowling’s retribution was swift.

    Fans of J.K. Rowling and Serena Williams alike took to their own Twitter handles to excoriate the fellow.

    In the hours since, the fellow has spat comebacks on his own Twitter account.

    The fellow, whose identity we will not go into digging up, may be enjoying his 15 minutes of reflected fame, or he may wish he had kept his mouth shut. One thing is for sure, it is tough to express oneself eloquently in a few characters and without much aforethought.

    This little tempest in a teapot is happening in an atmosphere in which women are speaking out about the unfairness of being judged primarily on looks.

    Amy Schumer recently remarked, “For women, we’re taught to eat less until we disappear. And trained to believe that if you don’t look like everyone else, then you’re unlovable. And men are not trained that way. Men can look like whatever and still date a supermodel.”

    And Jane Fonda also observed, “The perception of men as they get older is vastly different from women. Men are seen as becoming elegant and more desirable, whereas women are seen as having lost their beauty and attractiveness. It’s as if we become devalued because only our beauty defines us.”

    Even if this fellow meant something other than was received by most observers, it’s a bad time to throw thoughtless comments. Women have put up with thoughtless comments and outright discrimination for too long.

  • Jane Fonda Surprised She’s Still Getting Roles

    Jane Fonda is no newcomer to the argument about how women are treated in the film industry. Fonda has been fighting that fight all her career. For a woman who made tremendous amounts of money in a fitness endeavor, Fonda is adamant that looks not be the determiner of a woman’s worth.

    “The perception of men as they get older is vastly different from women,” Jane Fonda recently told the Daily Mirror. “Men are seen as becoming elegant and more desirable, whereas women are seen as having lost their beauty and attractiveness. It’s as if we become devalued because only our beauty defines us.”

    Fonda is joined in this chorus nowadays by a raft of other actresses who are angry that they are being told they are too old to be paired alongside even far older actors.

    “There are things that are really disappointing about being an actress in Hollywood that surprise me all the time,” Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed in a recent interview. “I’m 37 and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55. It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh.”

    Jane Fonda concurs with that finding.

    “I’m surprised I’m still getting opportunities because, for women, once you reach 40 or 50 it’s very difficult to find work,” Fonda says.

    Many other actresses have come forward, joined by men who see the same discrimination, to point out that the media often reports on what a man is doing, but on what a woman is wearing.

  • Maggie Gyllenhaal Discusses Hardships In Getting Movie Roles

    In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Maggie Gyllenhaal talked about her rejections for casting roles in the past. Gyllenhaal shared all the negative criticisms casting agents had told her.

    During a roundtable, the 37-year-old actress was sarcastically asked if she ever considered quitting acting. The actress recalled that she received plenty of ‘NOs’ during casting calls. Gyllenhall admitted that even today, she still gets that answer despite her success in Hollywood.

    “When I was starting out, I used to hear ‘no’ a lot and still do,” said Gyllenhaal.

    The worst lines that Gyllenhaal has admitted to hearing were ‘you’re not sexy enough’ and ‘you’re not pretty enough’.

    “When I was really young, I auditioned for this really bad movie with vampires. I wore a dress to the audition that I thought was really hot. Then I was told I wasn’t hot enough,” added Gyllenhaal.

    One person on the roundtable panel, Empire’s Taraji P. Henson, seconded the actress’s statement saying that she too had been told the same things before.

    Gyllenhaal said she tried even harder to appear sexy at auditions after being told by her manager to “sex it up a little bit.” The actress then wore leather pants and a pink leopard top during another audition but she still failed to get the role.

    “After that, I was like, OK, f*ck this!,” she exasperated.

    Apart from being rejected due to her looks, Gyllenhaal has also been denied roles due to her age. She revealed that at age 37, she was rejected as being too old to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man.

    The actress justified that she never bought and will never buy into the plastic surgery tradition in Hollywood.

    “I wanted to show what a woman my age really looks like. I am much more turned on when I see people’s bodies that look like bodies I recognize,” said Gyllenhaal.

    Sadly, other actresses at the same roundtable, such as Jessica Lange and Ruth Wilson, related to Gyllenhaal’s experiences.

  • Men’s Health Magazine: The Non-Sexist Advice They SHOULD Have Given

    Men’s Health magazine learned the hard way that they are coming to men about women and sports from the wrong century.

    The publication posted a teaser to an advice column meant to help men talk sports with women. That is, MOST women because if the reader “hadn’t noticed”, women typically aren’t into sports:

    Not all women share your passion for sports, in case you hadn’t noticed. The reason? They need story lines.

    It’s hard to believe an article can go so wrong this fast, but there it is. You can read the rest of the cringe-worthiness here. That’s the cached version; the offending preview has since been removed.

    The preview paragraphs shared by Men’s Health practically encouraged men to approach the topic of professional athletes as if the players had just stepped off the set of Steel Magnolias.

    Needless to say the backlash was fast and furious.

    For those gentlemen genuinely seeking advice for how to talk sports with women, please refer to the following in order to avoid coming across as an obnoxious misogynist:

    1.) NEVER assume that a woman hates sports because of her gender and gender alone

    This is no longer a safe bet in the 21st century as women sports fans are a huge untapped market.

    It could be your girlfriend loves the San Francisco 49ers, but can’t be bothered to care about the Giants. Therefore, her eyes glaze over because she’s not a baseball fan.

    She may have trophies tucked away from competitive sports that were earned long ago that you’ve never seen.

    Rather than presume, actually let her be the one to tell you how she feels about sports!

    2.) She may not be a sports fan at the moment, but that doesn’t mean she’s incapable of becoming one.

    It may not be that a woman can’t get into sports…it could be that it never occurred to her to care.

    When given the chance, she may find she enjoys the game as much as you do.

    Believe it or not, it may be for reasons which have nothing to do with how “cute” the athletes are.

    Sometimes it’s as simple as being caught up in the electric atmosphere and watching a series of outstanding displays of athleticism under pressure.

    Forget “story lines”; few things are as dramatic as the final seconds of a “must-win” game:

    3.) Do NOT treat every discussion about sports as an opportunity to impress her with how knowledgeable you are while condescending her.

    Some men make this mistake and then assume the rolled eyes are all about her not liking sports.

    Such persons really need to consider their attitude and whether or not it’s offensive. Approaching a woman in such a way is both sexist and annoying

    If you have any respect for your significant other, you’ll stop behaving in this manner.

    Do you sincerely want her to become a sports fan? Engage her like the human being she is, one capable of learning and comprehending new things. Do NOT treat her like a fangirl bimbo who is incapable of stringing together information unless a man is around to explain it to her.

    4.) If she’s not a sports fan and never will be, accept it.

    Some women really do hate sports and there’s no way to reverse their opinion.

    It could be they don’t like the games themselves. Or it could be that sports culture is historically misogynistic and exclusive towards women fans and athletes.

    Don’t think of it as a defect; think of it as a capability to have likes and dislikes just like any other person. If you want her to express an increased tolerance for your love of sports, be willing to reciprocate.

    If you demonstrate respect for her opinion on topics you aren’t personally enthusiastic about, this may result in her expressing the same level of respect when you rattle off sports stats and gush about your team’s league standings.

  • Elliot Rodger: A Creep Who Couldn’t Take Rejection?

    Elliot Rodger was walking validation for any and every woman who ever felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up when approached by certain men. Clearly by his actions, every woman who rejected the man who is blamed for the carnage in Santa Barbara, Calif. was right to do so.

    His drive-by shootings resulted seven confirmed deaths (including his own) and at least thirteen injuries. He’s also believed to have started his deadly rampage at home, due to the discovery of three bodies of individuals who had been stabbed to death.

    Some individuals are on the internet lamenting Rodger and how his tragic death just goes to show what can possibly go wrong when “women don’t put out for nice guys”.

    These persons are not only wrong, but I sincerely hope their information has been passed along to the authorities.

    Tragically, law enforcement officials were warned multiple times that Rodger was dangerous. It was just that they felt he possessed no threat that could lead them to take action.

    Elliot Rodger was, despite the violence he inflicted, not an unusual young man in terms of his entitled thinking. It is only the act of violence that set him a part from so many other like-minded individuals clogging up the internet with their issues.

    Tragically, these individuals are ignored not because they pose a danger, but because their beliefs are so common among a segment of dejected males.

    After all, who HASN’T heard a rant from some passive-aggressive individual who blames his lack of success on everyone else rather than his own thoughts and behavior. Such persons simply cannot handle rejection, even though rejection is a common human occurrence for men and women.

    Is Elliot Rodger mentally ill?

    A better question is why pretend that there aren’t millions of people who suffer from various mental illnesses, but somehow manage not to go on shooting sprees. While there are certainly persons that are dangerous because of mental health issues, it is quite clear from the videos, comments, and lengthy manifesto left behind what Rodger’s problem was. He pretty much spelled it out with his own words and actions.

    Elliot Rodger was simply a twenty-something male who couldn’t take rejection and felt entitled to women and ego-stroking. When he didn’t get what he wanted, he threw a fatal temper tantrum.

    Image via YouTube

  • Heather Graham Calls Hollywood Sexist

    Heather Graham has made a name for herself playing sexy moms in films such as The Hangover, Petals on the Wind, and Judy Moody.

    While Graham says she loves playing a mom on television, because she is not yet a mother, she says that being in the industry is hard because Hollywood is totally sexist.

    “I’m not saying the movie business isn’t sexist. It’s totally sexist,” she told Esquire, during a recent interview. “If you look at all the movies being made these days, eighty percent of them are about men.”

    “There’s not much I can do about it,” she added. “It’s a sexist world and a sexist industry.”

    Graham explains that she focuses on the positives of her career to help cope with the gender frustrations. “I’ve been very lucky as an actress, to work as much as I have and as consistently as I have,” she continued. “And when you don’t see the kind of stories out there that represent you, you have to make them yourself. I actually just wrote a script that I want to direct.”

    “I like to approach things the same in art as in life,” Graham explained. “You can choose to look on the positive side and enjoy whatever roles you’re given. You can find the silver lining in anything.”

    Graham’s most recent project has been her recurring role in the seventh and final season of Californication. Her first episode aired on April 20 on Showtime. She plays the part of a dental hygienist and the mother of David Duchovny’s baby.

    Image via Twitter

  • Jerry Lewis: Is His View Of Women In Comedy Sexist?

    It’s been a popular criticism of women in comedy and now a famous old school star is adding his voice to the argument.

    Jerry Lewis says that he absolutely enjoyed old school comediennes Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. Ball’s comedy is “brilliant” to Lewis while Burnett was deemed “the greatest female entrepreneur of comedy.”

    Lewis credits the talent of these women to the fact that they never “worked blue” the way so many women comics do today.

    “Seeing a woman project the kind of aggression that you have to project as a comic just rubs me wrong,” said Lewis. “I mean you got some very, very funny people that do beautiful work.”

    Despite an admission that the women who are vulgar in comedy are often talented, he added, “I have a problem with the lady up there that’s going to give birth to a child.”

    Women vulgarity in modern humor has long been a source of derision for a few of reasons.

    Firstly there is the long held view that the aggressive and lewd expression of self is a realm meant for men only. Society still views feminine energy as married to polite delicate behavior. It is an energy that isn’t meant to curse.

    The vulgar nature of women in comedy is also seen as a cheap imitation of so-called male humor. Are women comediennes working blue because it comes naturally or because they feel that it’s the only way to win over largely male comedic audiences? The need to fit in with male-dominated comedy is seen as a source of pressure for women rather than an expression of non-swearing comedy which some think should come more naturally to women

    Another criticism is the idea of vulgarity in modern humor itself. The nature of today’s comedy is sometimes too reliant on shocking and offending rather than actually being funny. While that is an understandable argument, it seems swearing in comedy is an issue to be applied uniformly.

    The possibility that a woman might give birth at some point isn’t exactly relevant to her ability to tell a joke and what kind of joke she gets to tell.

    Do you think Jerry Lewis’s remarks were fair or sexist? Comment below!

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • WestJet Passenger Leaves Sexist Message to Pilot, She Responds

    Can someone please remind me what year it is because if I recall, it is 2014 and not 1914!

    (SIGH)

    In recent news, a bizarre case of sexism occurred to a Canadian pilot from WestJet airlines.

    On Wednesday, an airplane was on its scheduled route from Calgary to Victoria, B.C., with female pilot Carey Steacy leading the flight.

    Most people are quite aware that female pilots exist, but for one passenger in particular, the news was totally discomforting.

    A male passenger by the name of David left a rather rude note on a napkin to Steacy.

    The message detailed how women shouldn’t pursue pilot careers, as he believed women are meant to stick to more traditional roles like being a mother. (image)

    “The cockpit of an airliner is no place for a woman,” the note began.

    He further mentioned how the airline should warn him when “a fair lady is at the helm,” just incase he needs to make changes to his flight.

    David then ended the insensitive note with the words “not impressed” followed by his signature on the back.

    Steacy shared photos of the scribbled message to her Facebook page, and along with it came her response:

    Thank you for the note you discreetly left me on your seat. You made sure to ask the flight attendants before we left if I had enough hours to be the Captain so safety is important to you, too.

    I have heard many comments from people throughout my 17-year career as a pilot. Most of them positive. Your note is, without a doubt, the funniest. It was a joke, right? RIGHT?? I thought, not. You were more than welcome to deplane when you heard I was a ‘fair lady’.

    You have that right. Funny, we all, us humans, have the same rights in this great free country of ours. Now, back to my most important role, being a mother.

    Steacy told CTV News that she and her colleagues were quite astonished by the sexist note.

    The pilot also stated that she felt it was necessary to respond because just like he has his opinions, she has hers.

    However, Steacy said that she does recognize how uncommon female pilots are today. (image)

    “Almost every day people I find are a little bit surprised, and I think it’s just because women aren’t enrolling in flight schools… And I just hope that that mindset can change, like it has in a lot of professions,” she said.

    According to the Today show, “Canadian carrier WestJet has 1,111 male pilots and 58 female pilots. Its subsidiary regional airline, WestJet Encore, has 87 male and 10 female pilots.”

    In a statement, the airline said that the response was disappointing. However, women working in the industry hope that the incident will help spread light on the contribution women have made throughout aviation history.

    My advice to this David character is to book a flight to an isolated island very far away, stay there, and never return to society since you’re “not impressed” by how modern-day women operate. Sorry to break it to you buddy, but female pilots are here to stay.

    Images via YouTube

  • Meryl Streep Calls Walt Disney A “Gender Bigot”

    Meryl Streep Calls Walt Disney A “Gender Bigot”

    On Tuesday, when Meryl Streep got on stage at the National Board of Review Awards Gala, the audience was probably expecting a thoughtful, short, congratulatory speech. She was presenting actress Emma Thompson an award for her role in the movie “Saving Mr. Banks”. Streep read a beautiful poem to honor her friend, but she also took a few minutes to blast American business magnate and animator, Walt Disney, calling him an “anti-Semite” and a “gender bigot”.

    Some in the audience were a bit taken aback when she described the man as having “racist proclivities”. According to the LA Times, Streep described Disney as a man born in his time, and was also part of an anti-Semitic, anti-communist group that consisted of big names such as Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Clark Gable and others. The group was officially known as the “Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals”.

    In her rebuke of Disney, Streep also quoted late Disney animator Ward Kimball by saying “Disney didn’t trust women or cats.”

    Disney biographer Neal Gabler concluded that “He (Walt Disney) willingly allied himself with people who were anti-Semitic, and that reputation stuck. He was never really able to expunge it throughout his life.”

    On Thursday, Today.com highlighted a tweet by the Walt Disney Museum, an organization dedicated to the animator. The tweet fires back at Streep by linking to an insightful blog post by former Disney animator turned blogger, Floyd Norman.

    Norman entitles his blog “Sophie’s Poor Choice”, referencing a film for which Streep won a Best Actress Oscar in 1982. In his blog post, Norman acknowledges that women in the 30’s and the 40’s weren’t provided with equal employment opportunities as men but that by the 50’s that inequality had diminished greatly. However, he also pointed out that talented women were employed at Disney and that some of the women who worked there told him “they’d never had a better job”. He also mentions that there were Jewish and African-American workers too, and that Disney recognized that talent had no color or ethnicity.

    Image via YouTube

  • Nerf Rebelle: Brilliant or Sexist?

    Nerf Rebelle: Brilliant or Sexist?

    One of the hot toys for the 2013 Christmas season is the Nerf Rebelle series of weapon-like toys. They’ve been made available by Hasbro with little girls exclusively in mind. How do we know they’re for little girls? Well, there’s a lot of pink and purple. In American society, it’s still common to “color code” toys so that parents won’t be confused regarding which items are for little boys and which items are for little girls. This is a marketing policy that started long before anyone ever heard of Nerf products.

    Still, it’s a bit disconcerting to some that this is happening in 2013. Especially when we all know the source material was anything but polite and pink: The Hunger Games and one Katniss Everdeen. The character was a rough and tumble young woman because she had to be. Because in her world, there was no room for being delicate. Strength, determination and the ability to hunt for food meant survival. There is nothing pretty or pink about survival. So why couldn’t Nerf market their products to little girls as is, with this life lesson in mind?

    Well, perhaps they will. They’ve just got to get their foot in the door first. Remember, we’re in uncharted territory right now when it comes to these kinds of toys and girls as an overt market. Nerf should be applauded for seeing a demand and rising to the occasion. After all, we’ve had a number of women in badass roles. Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 comes to mind. These are roles that didn’t see a toy company roll out a product aimed at girls based on these strong characters. Pink or not. Usually toy weapons are sold to boys so they can pretend to be cops, cowboys, etc. Nobody was giving toy weapons of any kind to little girls since the idea was that these things didn’t or shouldn’t appeal to little girls. But somebody out there made a connection. And if this toy does well, who’s to say that changes won’t be made in the future? It’s about supply and demand and public, meaning kids, feedback.

    If a little girl is sitting there watching Katniss on her television and deciding she wants to be Katniss, it could be she wants a toy to help her pretend and doesn’t care what color it is. The fact that little girls are asking for these toys and they’re such a hot Christmas item seems to suggest just that.

    For those modern moms wanting to buy such a toy but are hung up on the color scheme, there’s always the non-feminine version. If your little girl wants to train in her own imaginary version of the Hunger Games, it’s doubtful she’ll notice.

    Image: RS09 Youtube

  • Idaho High School Coach Fired Over Innocuous Facebook Photo, School District Faces Sexism Charges

    An Idaho school district is under fire after they terminated a high school basketball coach and part-time teacher for a seemingly innocuous vacation photo that she posted on Facebook.

    Pocatello, Idaho School District 25 fired Laraine Cook, a varsity girls basketball coach at Pocatello High School, after they discovered a photo from her Facebook page that showed her fiancé touching her fully-covered breast while posing at a family reunion. Both Cook and her fiancé are wearing bathing suits in the photo.

    The school district is also looking into revoking her teaching certificate based on grounds of immorality.

    Here’s where the story gets particularly wrinkly. Although Cook was dismissed on October 23rd, the photo that spurred her dismissal was actually taken and posted back in July – and it was only on Facebook for a couple of days. Cook actually removed the photo on the advice of the Pocatello High School Athletic Director, in order to avoid any problems that might spring up.

    The School District only learned of the photo’s existence when an image of the photo was mailed to them in October.

    “They told me that picture had been received at the district office, and that they were asking me to choose to either resign or be terminated,” Cook said. “I was told the reason I was dismissed was because it had been posted on my Facebook. However, our school district doesn’t have any social media policy.”

    And even if they did, this is grounds for immediate termination?

    Not only is the school district receiving backlash for the inarguably harsh reaction, but they are also fielding sexism accusations.

    While Cook was fired and is facing a future with no teaching license, her fiancé, who is Pocatello High’s football coach, only received a verbal reprimand. He still has his job. The school’s justification? The photo was posted on her profile.

    Cook has currently been granted the right to an appeal, and she says that a lawsuit is not out of the question.

    Although Pocatello School District 25 doesn’t allow post by others on its Facebook page, it does have reviews. People are sounding off there, and it’s not pretty.

    “Your treatment of Lorraine Cook is nothing short of idiotic. You have succeeded only in making Pocatello High School the laughing stock of America. I’m glad Ms. Cook has a good attorney, and I hope the mental midgets responsible for this weapons-grade stupidity pay dearly. You should all be ASHAMED!” says one user.

    “The Ruling against the Female Coach is total Hypocrisy and you need to get hip to the 21st century. Scarlet Letters went out several centuries ago. If she is wrong then so is he,” says another.

    “Seriously School District 25? YOU ARE A JOKE!! No wonder Idaho is 48th in K-12 education. School district officials are clearly more concerned with teacher’s personal lives, than actually educating Idaho’s youth.”

    While it’s true that operating a social media account (especially as a teacher or other public figure) comes with its fair share of risks, it appears that Cook has a pretty strong case here. Not only is the photo far from irresponsible and offensive, but it was removed months ago. Toss in the fact that the male in the photo was given a slap on the wrist and you have a recipe for outrage.

    What do you think?

    Images via video screenshot, Local News 8 & YouTube

  • Disney: Due To Emotions, Women Are Harder To Animate

    Disney: Due To Emotions, Women Are Harder To Animate

    Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen” will make its premier on November 27th on the silver screens all across theaters in American in the form of a Disney 3d animated adaptation titled, Frozen.

    Lately, Frozen has fired up a lot of controversy surrounding its rehashed Disney-fied version of the story, where most of the female characters are replaced with men. And whether to make matters worse or simply follow the motto that there is no such thing as bad publicity, Lino DiSalvo, the head of animation on Frozen, said in an interview with blogger Jenna Busch that:

    “Historically speaking, animating female characters are really, really difficult, because they have to go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty and they’re very sensitive to — you can get them off a model very quickly. So, having a film with two hero female characters was really tough, and having them both in the scene and look very different if they’re echoing the same expression; that Elsa looking angry looks different from Anna being angry.”

    DiSalvo’s comments were reposted on Tumblr with around 44,000 comments from users. Other well-known artists and animators voiced their input, like comic artist Faith Erin Hicks who mentioned that, generally, women should look human:

    With all criticism aside, Jenny Hollander over at Bustle mentioned a motive as to why DiSalvo may have said what he said, adding citations and stating that, “It’s a stereotype that women have all the feelings (whilst men look neutral as Switzerland as they face dragons) but it’s not psychologically disputed that women tend to be more facially expressive than men. Let’s be clear: it’s not that women have more emotions, or are more expressive in general, but women do tend to have a wider range of emotional expressions, use them more often, and don’t try as hard to conceal their emotions.”

    Amid Amidi at Cartoon Brew also put his feet in the shoes of DiSalovo, saying, “In fairness to DiSalvo, I get what he’s saying as an animator. Female characters in animation typically have a more limited range of facial expressions than their male counterparts, and they are caricatured only in villainous (think Cruella de Vil or Medusa in The Rescuers) or comedic contexts.”

    Critics like Pam Ryan at Film Jam Blog mention how Disney princesses present a falsified sexist image of women, where they’re usually identical to their predecessors; cookie-cut, dependent on men, and always pretty.

    (Pictures via Disney’s Frozen Website, WikiCommons (1), (2))