When Patricia Arquette used her Oscar acceptance speech to declare that "it's our time to have wage equality once and for all," she wasn't just talking about Hollywood millionaires; she was talking about all American women. Here's the official chart:
In 2004, American women were earning $303 per week (in 1984 dollars), compared to $378 for men. A decade later, in 2014, women had gained a whole dollar, to $304 per week, while men's wages had declined slightly to $368. Women are still earning about 80 cents for every dollar a man earns, and insofar as that ratio is improving, it's only because of the "mancession".
It's time that women's wages started going up, rather than all "improvements" in inequality being due to men's wages going down. If anybody can make that happen, it's the rich and powerful mingling at Oscar afterparties across Los Angeles tonight. The question is: how many glasses of vintage Champagne will it take before they forget that the speech even happened?
And how many of them even have a clue how much worse inequality is for black and Latina women?