It’s 2017, and yet women are still fighting for equality. Data suggests it will take until 2152 to close the gender wage gap, but it shouldn’t take a century to get what we want. We want more, and Refinery29 is here to help — because 135 years is too long to wait for what we deserve today.
Your daily dose of Hollywood sexism comes from the collective word of pop group Haim. According to the band's new interview with Grazia, Haim once fired their agent after learning of an absurdly large pay gap between the band and a male artist on the same festival lineup.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Though Haim did not mention the festival by name in their interview, the group — which consists of sisters Este, Danielle, and Alana — was apparently informed that the event paid low rates in exchange for potential radio play.
If that was true for Haim, it wasn't for a male artist on the lineup.
Danielle stated in the interview:
"We didn’t think twice about it, but we later found out that someone was getting paid 10 times more than us. And because of that we fired our agent."
"It’s fucked up not even to be paid half the same amount," added Alana in the Grazia interview. "But to be paid a tenth of that amount of money? It was insane."
It's on agents to make sure that their clients receive fair compensation for their work, and agents accepting a lower rate for women than they may for their male clients can explain why the pay gap in the entertainment industry exists. But by firing the agent who allegedly wasn't willing to work to bridge the pay gap, Haim is setting an example: Women artists won't tolerate being paid less than their male peers. Nor should they.
It's a lesson that some artists have learned the hard way. In her 2017 essay for Lenny Letter, actress Jennifer Lawrence shared how, initially, she was worried about coming off poorly by fighting for higher wages during negotiations.
"I didn't want to seem 'difficult' or 'spoiled,'" Lawrence wrote. "At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn't worry about being 'difficult' or 'spoiled.'"
Let's hope that Haim is making exactly what they deserve these days — and has the right people in their corner ready to work to make it happen.