Theron Negotiates Pay Raise

In more news of "more-talented women earning less than their male co-workers," Charlize Theron recently negotiated a $10 million dollar raise to put her on par with her male co-star Chris Hemsworth, for The Huntsman.  It seems Theron's re-negotiation was spurred by the Sony hacking scandal, in which it was revealed that women consistently made less than even their less-accomplished male co-stars.

In this case, because my first thought was, "Chris who?" I immediately went to IMDb to check out some of Hemsworth's acting stats. It turns out, he has 17 nominations and 7 wins.  Theron, meanwhile, has 43 wins and 43 nominations, including 1 Oscar win and nomination.

So, of course Hemsworth would have originally been making more than her.

As Jillian Berman notes at The Huffington Post, knowing what your co-workers make often helps women negotiate for pay that is on par with the higher salaries their male co-workers are usually getting.  And, I suspect, when salaries are transparent, it also make employers more wary to consistently be complacent about gender-based pay differentials. Secrecy benefits a status quo.



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