Kristen Bell Mocks Gender Pay Gap and More: Gender News Weekly

By Gender News Archives
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This is a weekly blog focused on gender equality. In this column, men in sitcoms face new challenges, Kristen Bell mocks the gender pay gap, major agencies start diversity initiative #FreeTheBid and Tim Gunn has some strong advice for the fashion industry.

 

Kristen Bell’s “Pinksourcing” Video Mocks Gender Pay Gap

“Why outsource all your production to faraway countries like India, China and Narnia when we have the cheapest and best workforce right here in the good ol' U.S. of A.: Women?” Kristen Bell of NBC's new sitcom The Good Place asks in a hilarious corporate video spoof which mocks the gender pay gap. As she walks through the “Pinksourcing” office, she passes by women, noting that they are the best solution to cutting business costs as you only have to pay them 77 cents on the dollar. “Best of all, you can promote literally anyone else besides them, especially if they are less qualified," she quips. "After all, women really don’t want to be working anyway. They’d rather be home taking care of the family.”  The video also addresses the pronounced difference in the wage gap for women of color. Watch it above.

 

The Evolution of Sitcom Men

Are sitcom narratives evolving as gender roles shift? This week, The New York Times took a look at the roles of men in fall’s lineup of new sitcoms: “This fall, broadcast television will turn its attention to the battle of the straight white man to assert his masculinity in an increasingly alien world,” columnist James Poniewozik writes.  Three new shows – CBS' Man With a Plan, The Great Indoors and Kevin Can Wait – all depict men struggling to adapt to reduced roles or new circumstances.  In Man With a Plan, for example, Adam, played by Matt LeBlanc, suddenly becomes a stay-at-home dad as his wife becomes the primary wage-earner. In The Great Indoors, a popular outdoors journalist returns to the office and is baffled by his “softer” male Millennial co-workers. As men grapple with new realities and anxieties, “At least these sitcoms suggest a more upbeat response to this type of anxiety: a reassurance that these characters, and their equivalents in the audience, still have a place in the world,” Poniewozik says.

 

#FreeTheBid Initiative Tackles Diversity at Ad Agencies

Less than 10% of female commercial directors at major ad agencies are women and those firms are now taking major steps to improve the ratio, announcing their commitment to a #FreeTheBid diversity initiative, Mashable reports. It’s typical that, at the bidding stage of an account, agencies present three directors to the client to showcase their talent. In an effort to combat gender bias #FreeTheBid will require that at least one of those three be a woman. "It seems like a no-brainer,” director Spike Jonze said of the initiative. “Of course we should be getting more women filmmakers to bid on jobs. As with all great ideas, it's such a simple one and the end result is going to be getting more diverse voices into the conversation and therefore more diverse voices into the work, which makes the work better." Mother, FCB Global and 180LA are three of the agencies taking the pledge.

 

Tim Gunn Asks Fashion Industry to Wake Up When It Comes to Women

"Project Runway" co-host Tim Gunn has some pretty strong words for fashion industry: Stop ignoring the average American woman, dummies! In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, he outlines why ignoring the average size of women in America today -- which by the way, is a size 16, not a size 6 -- is not only demeaning to women, but bad for business. “I love the American fashion industry, but it has a lot of problems, and one of them is the baffling way it has turned its back on plus-size women,” he writes. “It’s a puzzling conundrum.”  While there are over 100 million plus size women in the U.S. -- a $20.4 billion market that continues to grow year over year -- “many designers -- dripping with disdain, lacking imagination or simply too cowardly to take a risk -- still refuse to make clothes for them,” Gunn laments. Most clothing companies max out at size 12, he notes, and there is a substantial lack of stylish, plus-size brands. “I profoundly believe that women of every size can look good,” he writes, ending with his famous call-to-action: “There’s an art to doing this. Designers, make it work.”

 

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