Gwyneth Paltrow told TIME magazine this week that she thinks being compared to other celebrity female entrepreneurs is “slightly misogynistic.”
The actress and GOOP founder spoke to the publication for its latest issue, which also features three other actresses who have developed lifestyle brands of their own: Jessica Alba, Reese Witherspoon, and Blake Lively.
One of the questions Paltrow was asked was if she browses the other star’s websites, to which she responded:
That is a very interesting question, because I wonder if George Clooney would be asked about Puff Daddy’s ancillary liquor line. I’m fascinated how the media in particular are so confounded by entrepreneurial women doing something outside of their box.
Jessica [ Alba], especially, who’s a friend of mine- our businesses could not be more different. There’s not a lifestyle piece to her business. The fundamentals of our site are very different.
She continued:
Reese launched-our businesses have similarities, but hers has retail. People are grasping at straws to tie us together and I get it, because it makes a good story. But I’m slightly offended by this sort of generalization that happens with myself and Jessica and Reese and Blake.
Yes, there are similarities. But there aren’t stories in TIME written saying, “Wow, look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, who did x,y, and z!
The interviewer then told Paltrow that the observation wasn’t an original one, seeing as the other actresses’ sites all launched within a short span of time.
“I feel like there’s something slightly misogynistic about it,” she said. “This is a common theme. I think Reese and Jessica and I-I don’t know Blake Lively, and I don’t know if Jessica and Reese know each other-I’m friends with both of them and I speak to both of them and I want to do everything I can to support their businesses.”
She continued:
I’m not articulating it well, because I haven’t completely worked out what it is, but I feel proud when Jessica was on the cover of Forbes. I think that’s amazing.
You can quantitatively say, “Look what she’s done, she’s been able to conceive of a business and scale it to that size, in that amount of time.” But we have such different businesses.
Paltrow also told TIME she will not be filming anything in 2015 so that she can better tend to her business, Goop.
“I think you just put your nose to the grindstone and build your business and scale the best way you know how. You just keep going in hopes the story becomes not people pitting women against each other, which is not founded in truth. There’s no competition,” she said.
“None of us think we’re in each others space. I don’t know how you do it. You just get to f****** work!” she added.
“I think we’re in a funny time for women. We are more and more the breadwinners in families across America or contributing equally; there’s a shift happening sociologically and psychologically. People are wrestling with this new archetype of being a woman with a brain who’s also sexual and trying to do more than one thing at a time,” concluded Paltrow.
Jessica Alba landed this month’s cover of Forbes magazine, which is headlined, “America’s Richest Self-Made Women.”
The actress co-founded The Honest Company in 2012, and in just three years, the business has an estimated value of $1 billion
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