Mila Kunis has called out Hollywood’s gender bias in an open letter, detailing how she has been ‘insulted, sidelined, paid less, creatively ignored, and otherwise diminished based on [her] gender.’
Published on A Plus, the online platform co-founded by Mila’s husband Ashton Kutcher, the essay opens with a thoroughly depressing anecdote. The actress details how, ‘when I refused to pose semi-naked on the cover of a men’s magazine to promote our project,’ a producer told her that she would ‘never work in this town again.’
Of course, his words proved to be totally untrue – Mila is one of Hollywood’s most successful actresses, and as she puts it in her essay, ‘the world didn’t end. The film made a lot of money and I did work in this town again, and again, and again.’
‘What this producer may never realise is that he spoke aloud the exact fear every woman feels when confronted with gender bias in the workplace,’ she adds. ‘We don’t want to be kicked out of the sandbox for being a “b**ch.” So we compromise our integrity for the sake of maintaining the status quo and hope that change is coming.’
The actress goes on to detail how, after being ‘insulted,’ ‘paid less’ and ‘creatively ignored’ because of her gender, she decided that she was no longer prepared to ‘play by the rules of the boy’s club.’ Instead, she went on to found her production company, Orchard Farm Productions, with three other women.
But, when pitching a TV show (ironically, a project tackling ‘inclusivity and our shared human experience’) to a major network, Mila found herself subject to sexism once again, receiving an email from a producer with the following: ‘Mila is a mega star. One of the biggest actors in Hollywood and soon to be Ashton’s wife and baby momma.’
‘He reduced my value to nothing more than my relationship to a successful man and my ability to bear children,’ she writes. ‘It ignored my (and my team’s) significant creative and logistical contributions.’ Her response was to withdraw her team’s involvement in the project.
Stating that she is ‘done compromising’ and ‘done with being compromised,’ Mila vows in her essay not to let comments like these pass. Instead, she ‘will address them head on; I will stop in the moment and do my best to educate […] And if my comments fall on deaf ears, I will choose to walk away.’
She concludes by hoping that she can use her public platform to bring ‘one more voice to the conversation so that women in the workplace feel a little less alone and more able to push back for themselves.’ And as for that sexist producer?
‘I will work in this town again, but I will not work with you.’
Read Mila's essay in full on aplus.com.
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