Applause to Jennifer Lawrence

This week Jennifer Lawrence made us like her even more by writing a heartfelt letter on Lenny Letter. Remember the Sony hack that happened last year? Remember finding out from leaked emails that Jennifer’s male co-stars got paid more (to be read “muuuch more”) just because… oh, well, they’re male?! It was a scandalous period, and it seems the storm is not yet over.

As I was saying, in a very honest letter Jennifer Lawrence explains how it felt to find out something like that. “When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn’t get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself.” – the actress wrote.

She explains how she didn’t negotiate as much as she should have, maybe because she feared being liked less if she does. And even though, as she says, she is not really relatable from a budget point of view, I would say she is relatable from another aspect. After talking with some of my girlfriends, I realized that many of us have this fear to negotiate and fight for something that we’ve earned (in this case a raise). Another point Jennifer brought up is that women asking for something that they deserve are seen as spoiled while if a guy ask for it, it’s his right.

So, a girl might not ask for what she deserves just from this fear of being disliked, while a guy will do it without even having similar thoughts crossing his mind. This double standard has to stop and in order for that to happen we need to hear more stories like this. We should all thank Jennifer Lawrence (the lady with biggest balls in Hollywood) and hope that the others will be inspired to share similar stories.

So what I advise you to do is to read Jennifer’s letter and pass it along. Also subscribe to Lenny Letter, there are many interesting things happening in Lena Dunham’s new project and it’s a must for every girl to join.