Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and other actresses recently discussed sexism and misogyny during a roundtable discussion.
The veteran actresses were joined by Oprah Winfrey, Jessica Lange Elisabeth Moss and Chrissy Metz for Hollywood Reporter’s ‘Drama Actress Roundtable’.
The women discussed topical issues such as working versus childcare, lack of female representation in the media and how to tackle sexism.
Witherspoon, who produced and starred in the female-centric Big Little Lies, explained why there’s a need for more women represented in mainstream media:
“We have the opportunity to show the entire spectrum of human emotion that women have,”
“We aren’t just the wives and the girlfriends. We are actually living, breathing people who have insecurities.”
Witherspoon continued, “But just examining the human condition and also putting a bigger array and a more dynamic idea of what a woman is and what her experience is…”
When asked about Pacific Standard, Witherspoon’s production company that aims to increase roles for women, the actress explained how the idea was conceived.
The Walk the Line actress got increasingly frustrated by the responses from producers to her question, “What are you developing for women?”
She said, “I started a production company five years ago because I was looking at maybe the worst script I’ve ever read in my entire life and it had two parts for women.”
“I called my agents and said, ‘This is such a terrible script.'”
“They said, ‘Well, seven women want it so … you’re the only one who’s not vying for the part.’ And I thought, ‘God, if this is what we’ve come to, I have to get busy.'”
Witherspoon concluded that sexism could only be changed if tackled head on:
“You can either complain about a problem or you can be part of the solution”
American Horror Story star Jessica Lange agreed, stating: “I don’t think we’ve ever seen this much misogyny, this much sexism”
This is Us star Chrissy Metz, who is a plus-sized actress, explained the need for more representation of women her size in the media:
“Why are we so judged on the way we look when it’s just the vehicle — it’s just the package that we’re in? And it ebbs and flows and it changes.”
“It needs to be seen.”
“And so many women have been like, ‘I’ve never seen my body shape on TV.’ And I say, ‘I know! Neither have I!'”
Kidman and Witherspoon, co-stars of Big Little Lies, then went into childcare, explaining that parental expectations are different for men and women.
“The other thing is, being a woman and having children, there are so many things I would want to do, but so much of my life is, how do I balance that?” explains Kidman.
“We don’t get the choices as much with our careers and our lives because a lot of it is, we have to be there to take care of everything still.”
Witherspoon agreed, explaining that a man going to work and coming home is seen as ‘heroic’: “They [the men] go away and come back and they’re a hero. We go away and come back and we have abandoned our children.”
Lange concluded that women should separate work and home life: “Just be pregnant, be home with the kids, don’t have something that you have to get up at 5am for.”
“Those are the regrets, not the ones that you said no to but the ones you said yes to.”
