Mila Kunis penned a powerful letter in A Plus detailing the sexism she’s experienced throughout her career, including having a producer threaten her future in the entertainment industry simply for refusing to pose semi nude in a mens magazine to promote a film.
“’You’ll never work in this town again.’ A cliché to be sure,” she wrote. “I was no longer willing to subject myself to a naïve compromise that I had previously been willing to.” Upset by his statement, she continued, writing, “‘I will never work in this town again?’ I was livid, I felt objectified, and for the first time in my career I said ‘no.’ And guess what? The world didn’t end. The film made a lot of money and I did work in this town again, and again, and again.”
What’s more is during a pitch to a major network, she received an email from a producer referring to Kunis as Ashton Kutcher’s “wife and baby momma.”
“He reduced my value to nothing more than my relationship to a successful man and my ability to bear children. It ignored my (and my team’s) significant creative and logistical contributions,” she stated. They removed their involvement in the project.
The entire piece is worth a read and really a powerful statement on the work still needed to be done in the equality game.