Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep Among 150 Celebrities Warning World Leaders About Gender Equality

COLUMBIA, SC - DECEMBER 9: Talk show host Oprah Winfrey introduces Democratic presidential
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Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep, and Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman were among the famous Hollywood luminaries appended to a letter putting world leaders “on notice” about gender inequality.

“Dear World leaders,” the letter reads, according to the Hollywood Reporter, “We’re putting you on notice.”

The letter continued:

For 130 million girls without an education. For one billion women without access to a bank account. For 39,000 girls who became child brides today. For women everywhere paid less than a man for the same work.

There is nowhere on earth where women have the same opportunities as men, but the gender gap is wider for women living in poverty.

Poverty is sexist. And we won’t stand by while the poorest women are overlooked.

You have the power to deliver historic changes for women this year. From the G7 to the G20; from the African Union to your annual budgets; we will push you for commitments and hold you to account for them. And, if you deliver, we will be the first to champion your progress.

We won’t stop until there is justice for women and girls everywhere.

Because none of us are equal until all of us are equal.

The gender equality letter is the fourth annual public correspondence from the international charity ONE, delivered on International Women’s Day 2018. Since then, over 150 “influential figures” have signed their name below the message.

Included among those are Hollywood elites like Reese Witherspoon, Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Natalie Portman, Mariska Hargitay, Mindy Kaling, Neil Patrick Harris, and Yara Shahidi, and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

“The fight for gender equality does not stop in our own backyards,” ONE said in their blog post, “and the conversation must include the girl denied an education in South Sudan, the farmer not allowed to own the land she works in Uganda, and the woman not allowed to bank the money she earns in Chad.”

“We’re living through an incredible moment in history and surrounded by inspiring examples of what is possible when people come together and stand up for what they believe in,” the letter said.

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