So, we all know that Patricia Arquette gave a rousing speech about the gender pay gap at the Oscars, and that Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez both stood up and screamed their approval. However, the winner of the best supporting actress award’s comments missed the mark for some.
While many women of colour and queer women were taking apart Patricia’s clumsy comments made backstage (more on that later), Stacey Dash, you know, Dionne from Clueless and the love interest in Kanye West’s All Falls Down video, was more pissed off with Patricia’s actual on-stage comments.
Why? Well, Stacey, who is now a pundit on Fox News, said that she was ‘appalled’ by the speech, and ‘couldn’t believe it!’
‘First of all, Patricia Arquette needs to do her history. In 1963, Kennedy passed an equal pay law. It’s still in effect. I didn’t get the memo that I didn’t have any rights.’
Well, yeah, there are plenty of laws that exist, it doesn’t mean that they work. Actual statistics show that women get paid less than men. Does Stacey not believe them?
Meanwhile, Patricia herself went on Twitter to defend her comments made backstage. She had said: ‘So the truth is, even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America, right under the surface, there are huge issues that are applied that really do affect women.
‘And it’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.’
The implication – to some – was that everyone from every minority now had to down tools to go and help out with Patricia Arquette’s quest to get white women more money.
Roxane Gay, a prominent feminist professor tweeted:
However, Patricia responded with a flurry of Tweets, which can basically be summarised like this:
Clumsy comments from both Stacey and Patricia here, but we don’t really get who Stacey’s trying to help with her comments…
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Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.