Zoe Saldana Says Hollywood Had an Issue with Her Getting Pregnant, Thinks They Should Pay for Childcare
Speaking with USA Today, Saldana expressed her… frustrations with the reactions to her recent pregnancy (she had twins!).
“Let me tell you something, it will never be the right time for anybody in your life that you get pregnant,” says Saldana, noting that last year, “the productions I was slated to work on sort of had a panic. I heard through the grapevine there was even a conversation of me being written off of one of the projects.”
Her reaction?
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, are you kidding me? It’s this bad?’ Right when I just feel super-duper happy, is that inconvenient for you? That me, as a woman in my thirties, I finally am in love and I am finally starting my life? And it’s (screwing) your schedule up? Really?”
Yes, really. And of course it’s not an issue that belongs to Hollywood alone. Countless employers are wary of hiring women they believe are about to start a family and some will even straight up discriminate against them. Then of course there’s the paid leave issue for after employees have a baby and USA Today mentions a 2014 study from the Families and Work Institute, writing “only 20% of large employers (with 1,000 or more employees) provide child care at the workplace, and just 5% contribute financially toward it.”
Saldana thinks there’s an imbalance considering studios will
“spend more money sometimes ‘perking’ up male superstars in a movie,” she says, paying for private jets, a coterie of assistants and bodyguards or booking “a really phat penthouse or them staying in a yacht instead of them staying on land.”
“But then a woman comes in going, ‘OK, I have a child. You’re taking me away from my home. You’re taking my children away from their home. And you’re going to make me work a lot more hours than I usually would if I was home. Therefore, I would have to pay for this nanny for more hours — so I kind of need that. And they go, ‘Nope, we don’t pay for nannies.’ “
More and more actors are speaking out every day about the sexism inherent in the industry, both behind the scenes and in front. It took Sony’s recent email hack to get Jennifer Lawrence paid more than her male co-star Chris Pratt — what will it take to help fix Saldana, and others’, issues?
A photo posted by Zoe Saldana (@zoesaldana) on
(via US Weekly)
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