Theron said she was outraged when leaked Sony emails showed a
gap in what male and female actors were paid for the film
"American Hustle" and she insisted on being paid on par with
co-star Chris Hemsworth for the Snow White sequel "The
Huntsman".
"I have to give them credit, because once I asked, they said
yes," Theron said in an interview with British magazine Elle UK.
"They did not fight it. And maybe that's the message: that we
just need to put our foot down."
Her call for equal pay echoes Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner
for the Democratic presidential nomination, who has also
lamented the pay gap between men and women.
A report by the United Nations' International Labour
Organization (ILO) this year warned that the income of women
workers globally will lag behind men for another 70 years if the
gender pay gap continues to narrow at the present rate.
Women globally earn 77 percent of the amount paid to men, a
figure that has improved by only three percentage points in the
past 20 years, the ILO said.
South African-born Theron, 39, who won an Oscar for her
portrayal of a serial killer in the 2003 film "Monster", said
women needed to stand up for equality and be proud to be
feminists.
"This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of
fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good
thing," said Theron, who will be on the big screen in this
month's action movie "Mad Max: Fury Road".
"It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights."
(Reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)
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