The World’s Ten Highest Paid Female Actors Earned Less Than Half That Of Their Male Counterparts

Forbes’ have released their annual lists of the world’s ten highest paid male and female actors, and surprise surprise, the women are getting ripped-off. The combined earnings of the ten best paid women add up to $205 million – which sounds pretty good, until you consider that the ten best paid men made $457 million over the exact same period of time.

Jennifer Lawrence topped the women’s list with $46 million. Were the two lists combined, that figure would land her in sixth place, behind Dwayne Johnson ($64.5 million), Jackie Chan ($61 million), Matt Damon ($55 million), Tom Cruise ($53 million) and Johnny Depp ($46 million). Only one other woman, Melissa McCarthy ($33 million), would crack the amalgamated top ten.

The disparity doesn’t exactly come as a huge surprise – which is not to say that it’s any less outrageous. The 2014 Sony email hack revealed that Lawrence and Amy Adams were to be paid significantly less for their work on American Hustle than their male co-stars Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner – despite the fact that the Hunger Games star was arguably a bigger box office draw than anyone on the cast list rocking a Y chromosome.

Lawrence later addressed the wage disparity in a scathing essay for Lena Dunham’s feminist newsletter, in which she wrote that part of the problem was that women in Hollywood have to worry about coming across as “difficult” or “spoiled” while negotiating for their slice of the pie.

“I’m over trying to find the ‘adorable’ way to state my opinion and still be likeable,” Lawrence wrote. “Fuck that. I don’t think I’ve ever worked for a man in charge who spent time contemplating what angle he should use to have his voice heard. It’s just heard.”

Admittedly, when you’re talking about people earning tens of millions of dollars, it may not feel like a particularly pressing issue – as Lawrence conceded in her essay, “it’s hard for me to speak about my experience as a working woman because I can safely say my problems aren’t exactly relatable.” But it does demonstrate just exactly how far reaching the pay gap really is.

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h/t The Wrap