In a scathing open letter this week, Mila Kunis condemned a Hollywood producer who threatened her when she refused to pose semi-nude – and joined a rapidly growing list of actresses who have vocally rebuked the sexism they regularly face.

Kunis didn’t name the producer who told her she’d “never work in this town again” if she refused to pose partially naked on the cover of a men’s magazine to promote a film years ago. His words made her “livid,” she wrote, and she said “no.”

“And guess what? The world didn’t end,” she wrote in her essay for A Plus magazine. “The film made a lot of money and I did work in this town again, and again, and again. What this producer may never realize is that he spoke aloud the exact fear every woman feels when confronted with gender bias in the workplace.”

And gender bias is undeniably rampant in Hollywood. Recent studies, including research conducted by Geena Davis’ advocacy organization, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, consistently reveal discouraging trends: Actresses get paid less. They are three times as likely to appear in nude scenes as their male counterparts. They get fewer roles, especially as they age, and the parts they do get have fewer speaking lines.

Davis, one of the industry’s most vocal women’s rights activists, has often said that the treatment of women in Hollywood – and the way they are portrayed onscreen – has become so standardized that the problem is all but invisible. But more women in Hollywood – Melissa McCarthy, Patricia Arquette and Jennifer Aniston, among others – are aiming to change that by speaking up about their experiences.


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