There’s been a little backlash against Patricia Arquette’s decision to use her Oscar speech opportunity to call for wage equality for women. A little sniping that wage equality for women whose paychecks include six or even seven figures is a little different than wage equality on a lower scale. Even more complaining that Ms. Arquette “ruined it” with backstage commentary “dismissive” of equal rights for others.
And more than a little complaining that Ms. Arquette limited her call to “women who gave birth:” (From savvyauntie)
Finally, according to Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig in The New Republic, Ms. Arquette essentially did it wrong. Wage inequality isn’t the problem for most of us. It’s income inequality — because outside of Hollywood and the fortunate few, equal wages still aren’t a living wage.
Right, or overreaction? One voice on my Facebook page noted that there was no similar backlash against John Legend “for using the same Hollywood platform to speak out on behalf of incarcerated black men when he himself is not downtrodden or incarcerated.” I won’t link to her, because she was flamed herself for the suggestion.
Maybe Ms. Arquette’s minute at the podium was imperfect. In fact, it surely was. She could have said more about wages, and less about various groups vying for equal rights in what is not a zero-sum game. She could have been more clear that it’s not the giving birth that matters, not to her or to the individuals and social forces that set the pay scales, but the ability to give birth — in other words, simply being a woman. I haven’t done a survey of my Academy Award speech-giving friends (possibly because I don’t have any), but I’m willing to bet they all have one thing in common, and that’s the wish for a do-over. At least Ms. Arquette put her thoughts out there in the world where if everybody loves you, you’re doing something wrong.
But as we listen to her words being torn apart, there’s a real risk that other women, other actresses, others who may at various times in their lives have a chance for one minute that the whole country will hear, are hearing something else:
Shhh.