Bridesmaids’ Actress on Hollywood Gender Inequality: ‘It’s Not Just Good Ol’ Fashioned Misogyny’

While promoting her new film Spy, Byrne made a few comments in reference to recent news of the industry’s handling of gender equality, and said she too believes women are intentionally being discriminated against in film and TV.

“The statistics are still so dreadful for women in film,” Byrne told PrideSource. “Now the ACLU is doing an investigation into it because they’re starting to realize it’s actually discrimination-it’s not just good ol’ fashioned misogyny that everyone’s quietly tolerated for years.”

Byrne has been an advocate for female empowerment in Hollywood for many years, per The Wrap, and even founded her own company, called The Dollhouse Collective, which champions female filmmakers and stories told from their perspective.”It’s legitimate discrimination based on gender, which is illegal,” Byrne continued. “Any discrimination is, whether it’s sexually, race or gender.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the national ACLU women’s rights Project announced last week they will ask the California civil rights agencies to investigate a “systemic failure” to hire women directors.

“Women directors aren’t working on an even playing field and aren’t getting a fair opportunity to succeed,” Melissa Goodman, director of the LGBT, Gender and Reproductive Justice Report at the ACLU of Southern California, told The Wrap. “Gender discrimination is illegal. And really Hollywood doesn’t get this free pass when it comes to civil rights and gender discrimination.”

On Wednesday, Oscar nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal shared a story from when she says she was looked over for a role because she was “too old.”

 “There are things that are really disappointing about being an actress in Hollywood that surprise me all the time,”Gyllenhaal said. “I’m 37 and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55. It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh.”

“Every time we think things are getting better for women in Hollywood, something comes along to remind us — naaah,” she added.

Gyllenhaal joins a growing list of Hollywood’s leading ladies who are calling out the industry, more specifically; ones who say they were viewed as inadequate once they reached a certain age.

“Once women passed childbearing age they could be only seen as grotesque on some level,” Oscar winner Meryl Streep told Vogue 2011.

“As soon as a woman gets to an age where she has opinions and she’s vital and she’s strong, she’s systematically shamed into hiding under a rock,” Sarah Silverman said in 2013.

“[Men are] f*ckable forever. They could be 100 with nothing but white spiders coming out [of their privates], but they’re f*ckable,” said Tina Fey this year.

“By the time you’re 28 you’re expired, you’re playing mommy roles,” Zoe Saldana told The Telegraph in 2014.

The conversation about sexism was also alive and well at the Cannes Film Festival this past week, with the fest itself coming under fire after security allegedly denied entry to women into red carpet screenings who were not wearing high heels.

“It’s critical that women are at the heart of the international film industry, not just as glamorous icons but as creators, as artists, as decision-makers, ensuring that the narrative – of not just half but 51 percent of the worlds population – is fully present,” Jane Fonda said during the acceptance speech for Women in Motion award at Cannes.