Movies

11 Times Women Fought for Equal Pay—And Got Theirs

From Ellen Pompeo and Octavia Spencer to Venus Williams, these women and their fights for pay equity provide a master class in how to get what you deserve.
Ellen Pompeo speaks onstage during the Edelman session at the Cannes Lions Festival 2018 on June 19 2018 in Cannes France.
Getty Images

Eighty cents. That’s how much a woman is paid, on average, for each dollar a man makes. The number alone is pathetic, and women of color are hit even harder. Black women earn 61 cents, while Native American women take home 58 cents. For Latinx women, it sinks even lower: a mere 53 cents. Of course no one woman is in a position to change the wage gap on her own, and it takes a tremendous amount of privilege to even be in a position to fight for more. That said, there’s no satisfaction quite like watching a woman demand to be paid what she’s worth. From Ellen Pompeo to Mika Brzezinski—women are leveling up at the negotiation table and setting an example for how we should all be treated at work. Here, we celebrate their victories.

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  • Bryce Dallas Howard
    Steve Granitz
    1/11

    Bryce Dallas Howard

    While reports that Bryce Dallas Howard made $2 million less than her Jurassic World costar Chris Pratt for the sequel, Fallen Kingdom, have been circulating since 2018, Howard revealed that the disparity is actually significantly worse than we thought.

    “The reports were so interesting because I was paid so much less than the reports even said, so much less,” Howard told Variety in August 2022. “When I started negotiating for Jurassic, it was 2014 and it was a different world, and I was at a great disadvantage. And, unfortunately, you have to sign up for three movies and so your deals are set.”

    Howard added that Pratt offered to negotiate on her behalf when it came to additional opportunities, including theme park rides and video games. “What I will say is that Chris and I have discussed it, and whenever there was an opportunity to move the needle on stuff that hadn’t been already negotiated, like a game or a ride,” she said, “he literally told me, ‘You guys don’t even have to do anything. I’m gonna do all the negotiating. We’re gonna be paid the same and you don’t have to think about this, Bryce.’

    “I love him so much for doing that,” Howard concluded. “I really do, because I’ve been paid more for those kinds of things than I ever was for the movie.”

  • Getty Images
    2/11

    Octavia Spencer

    When Octavia Spencer teamed up with LeBron James for an upcoming Netflix series about the life of African American millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker, James and his business partner Maverick Carter helped Spencer get paid. “When we were in negotiations, they had to…step up for me,” Spencer told The Undefeated. “When I asked for certain things, they had to go and say, ‘She deserves these things!’ It’s sad that we have to do that, but they did, and that’s what I’m working with: people who have no problem standing up.”

    This isn’t the first time a collaborator has helped Spencer get her due. When Jessica Chastain came to Spencer about working together on a project, Spencer opened up about how women of color are often paid less than white women in the industry. “I told her my story and we talked numbers and [Chastain] was quiet, and she had no idea that that’s what it was like for women of color,” said Spencer at a Sundance Film Festival panel. Chastain vowed that they would make the same amount for the film, and by the next week they were making five times what they’d asked for.

  • Getty Images
    3/11

    US Women’s Soccer Team

    The United States women’s soccer team have set the standard for female athletes seeking equal pay. They first began their fight in 2016, when five players filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, asking to be paid as much as the players on the men’s team (the EEOC has still not issued a decision in their case). Then in 2017 they negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer to run through 2021, which increased their salaries and improved practice conditions.

    Though their increased paychecks is a cause for celebration, these women aren’t backing down. On International Women’s Day 2019, the team filed a gender discrimination suit against US Soccer. “Each of us is extremely proud to wear the United States jersey, and we also take seriously the responsibility that comes with that,” team member Alex Morgan told the Associated Press. “We believe that fighting for gender equality in sports is a part of that responsibility. As players, we deserved to be paid equally for our work, regardless of our gender.”

  • Michael Tran
    4/11

    Ellen Pompeo

    In 2018 Ellen Pompeo spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about how she became the highest-paid actress on a prime-time drama, for her work on Grey’s Anatomy. Her interview went viral and taught women how they can demand to be compensated for their work. “At one point, I asked for $5,000 more than [Patrick Dempsey] just on principle, because the show is Grey’s Anatomy and I’m Meredith Grey,” Pompeo told THR. “They wouldn’t give it to me. And I could have walked away, so why didn’t I? You feel conflicted, but then you figure, ‘I’m not going to let a guy drive me out of my own house.’”

    After starring on the show for 14 seasons, she signed a contract that gave her a paycheck of $575,000 per episode. “Decide what you think you’re worth and then ask for what you think you’re worth,” she told them. “Nobody’s just going to give it to you.”

  • Getty Images
    5/11

    Robin Wright

    Even before Robin Wright’s character on House of Cards became the president of the United States, Wright knew Claire Underwood’s value. During negotiations with Netflix, Wright told them she’d go public if they didn’t pay her as much as her costar Kevin Spacey. “There are very few films or TV shows where the male, the patriarch, and the matriarch are equal,” she said at the Rockefeller Foundation. “And they are in House of Cards. Claire Underwood’s character was more popular than [Frank’s] for a period of time, so I capitalized on it. I was like, ‘You’d better pay me or I’m going to go public.’ And they did.” After they met her demands, Wright remained so dedicated to the show that she even convinced them to run a final season without Spacey, who was removed from the show following allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

  • Glamour
    6/11

    Emmy Rossum

    If you’ve ever seen Showtime’s Shameless, you know that Emmy Rossum’s character, Fiona Gallagher, was the heart and soul of the show up until she departed the series in 2019. But when she first signed onto the project in 2011, she was much less well-known than actor William H. Macy, who plays her father on the series—and her salary was significantly less than his. But by 2016, after many seasons and central plot lines, she asked to be paid the same amount as Macy. “As the time went on, the leadership role started to feel somewhat shared,” Rossum said at Vulture Festival. “I just felt that I love the show, I love everyone in it, I want to keep doing it, but I just wanted it to feel right.” And Macy agreed. “It’s unconscionable they would pay a woman less for the same job. It’s show biz’s job to get us for as cheaply as they can—and our job to say no,” he said at the same panel. Shortly after, it was announced Rossum would receive equal pay going forward.

  • Getty Images
    7/11

    Venus Williams

    In tennis tournaments, prizes have been famously unequal. It wasn’t until 2001 that male and female winners were awarded the same amount at the Australian Open. It took until 2006 for the French Open to even out the pots. The point? Change takes time. In 2005 Venus Williams made a failed plea to Wimbledon the night before she won the title. Twelve months later she wrote an op-ed, “Wimbledon Has Sent Me a Message: I’m Only a Second-Class Champion,” for The Times of London. At last, Williams won Wimbledon in 2007 and was awarded $1.4 million—the same amount as men’s champion Roger Federer. The prizes have been equal ever since, thanks to Williams.

  • Getty Images
    8/11

    Charlize Theron

    After the success of Snow White and the Huntsman, Charlize Theron was approached to film a sequel. She was game, with just one caveat—that she’d be paid the same as her costar Liam Hemsworth. Theron used the leaked Sony emails that revealed a pay disparity between the male and female stars of American Hustle to argue for a raise. “When I thought about the temperature out there — with finding out what Jennifer [Lawrence] and Amy [Adams] were being paid on a set with guy actors who are their counterparts…they’re just as good as any of the guys on there. Yeah, that pissed me off!” She told British Elle. “This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn’t mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you’re doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way.” Theron went on to star in the sequel, and earned the same paycheck as Hemsworth.

  • Getty Image
    9/11

    Mika Brzezinski

    When Mika Brzezinski first started out on Morning Joe, she was just so grateful to have a job and be on the show that she never dreamed of asking for more money. That was until she found out that she was the lowest paid of her colleagues and that Joe Scarborough was outearning her 14 times over. “It hit me like a ton of bricks: I had missed when my stock was up. I wasn’t going to miss it again,” Brzezinski told InStyle. She stormed into her producer’s office and told him: “I know it’s a little late and I already signed my contract. But here’s the deal—I’m not coming to work tomorrow, OK? Not until we fix this.” Brzezinski appealed to her bosses on five different occasions before she was paid what she deserved, and she’s been a champion for pay equity ever since.

  • Getty Images
    10/11

    Thandie Newton

    Ahead of the premiere of Westworld’s second season, Thandie Newton, who has won an Emmy for her work on the HBO show, announced that she would be paid the same as her male costars. “They’re all happening right now, and yeah, we’re all equal across the board,” Newton told Vanity Fair about her contract negotiations. “It’s really exciting. It’s unprecedented. It’s—goodness, it shatters so much calcified pain, resentment, frustration. It just shatters it.” Evan Rachel Wood, who also stars on the show, received equal pay as well.

    The agreement emboldened Newton to promise to turn down any future projects that would pay her less than her coworkers. “I wouldn’t do anything if it didn’t. Definitely not,” she said. “Fuck that. It literally sets a precedent, and [HBO is] leading the way, which is amazing.”

  • Getty Images
    11/11

    US Women’s Ice Hockey Team

    In 2017 the US women’s hockey team announced that they would boycott the upcoming world championship if the sport’s governing body didn’t increase their wages. It was a risky move, given that many of the players had no financial safety net. But it paid off. Days later they reached an agreement with USA Hockey for a four-year deal that gave the players a $2,000 training stipend per month and larger bonuses for winning championships. “It was the right thing to do for the next generation of girls that dream of playing on the national team,” defenseman Monique Lamoureux-Morando said in an interview with Sports Illustrated.

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