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Watch Michelle Williams' positive, impassioned Emmy speech on women and equal pay

"Listen to her. Believe her."

Twitter / The Hollywood Reporter

Actress Michelle Williams earned a standing ovation for her acceptance speech at the 2019 Emmy Awards, both in the Microsoft Theater in L.A. and among viewers online.

As she accepted her first Emmy award for Lead Actress in a Limited Series/Movie for her role in FX's "Fosse/Verdon," she praised the studios who produced the show for supporting her in everything she needed for the role—including making sure she was paid equitably.

"I see this as an acknowledgment of what is possible when a woman is trusted to discern her own needs, feel safe enough to voice them, and respected enough that they'll be heard," she said.

She explained how being provided what she needed in order to do her job empowered her to do it well. "When I asked for more dance classes, I heard 'yes,'" she said. "More voice lessons, 'yes.' A different wig, a pair of fake teeth not made out of rubber, 'yes.'"

"All of these things, they require effort and they cost more money," she said. "But my bosses never presumed to know better than I did about what I needed in order to do my job and honor Gwen Verdon."

RELATED: Why Amy Adams' silence on equal pay in Hollywood speaks volumes for workers' rights

They also supported her with equal pay, she said, a shout out that prompted nods and cheers from her fellow actors and actresses.

"And so I want to say, thank you so much to FX and to Fox 21 studios for supporting me completely and for paying me equally because they understood that when you put value into a person, it empowers that person to get in touch with their own inherent value. And then where do they put that value? They put it into their work. And so the next time a woman, and especially a woman of color—because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white, male counterpart—tells you what she needs in order to do her job, listen to her. Believe her. Because one day she might stand in front of you and say thank you for allowing her to succeed because of her workplace environment and not in spite of it."

The gender pay gap in Hollywood has been well-documented. A 2016 Forbes article broke it down in detail, sharing how female stars are consistently paid less than male stars.

"The earnings disparity is even worse for women of color," the article states. "While, on average, women in this country make an average of 78% of their male counterparts, African American and Native American women make 64 cents and 59 cents, respectively, for every dollar made by white men, and Hispanic women earn just 56 cents to a white man's dollar."

RELATED: When she learned about the wage gap, she didn't whine. She did something about it.

Statistics are naturally varied, as studies vary in how they determine pay equity. Some studies show a smaller gap, while others show larger ones. But one thing is clear: It doesn't seem to be getting better. For example, a 2018 study showed that women across the board earn 49 cents for every dollar men earn. A more recent Forbes article states that the top 10 highest paid actresses made just 30 cents on the dollar compared to the top 10 highest paid actors.

It's easy to point to the high salaries of famous people and ask why they would ever complain. But inequity is inequity, regardless of industry. Good for Michelle Williams for celebrating her positive experience with this show and imploring other studios to follow that example.

Watch her speech here:

— (@)

Actress Amy Adams has been mistakenly painted as keeping mum on gender pay inequality — when, in fact, she was trying to do the opposite.

After being criticized for not being more vocal about the gender pay gap when it was revealed that she and co-star Jennifer Lawrence were making significantly less than their male counterparts in "American Hustle," Adams set the record straight.

Photo by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images for IFP.

In a telling interview, Adams revealed that to her, there are more important gender wage gap issues to talk about.

"Everyone wanted me to talk about how I felt about it, but I want to fight for people outside our industry, so to come out and look ungrateful about what I'm paid as an actress just didn't feel right," Adams told The Telegraph.

Having taken home $11.5 million in 2017, Adams makes substantially more than teachers and domestic workers, not to mention doctors and lawyers.

"I do believe in equal pay, but let's start with our teachers," Adams added. "Let's get waiters paid the minimum wage. That's what's great about what's happening with Time's Up — we're starting to have bigger conversations than just about what's happening in Hollywood."

Adams' point rings painfully true: White women across industries make, on average, 80 cents to the white male dollar — and those numbers are much worse for black and Latinx women.

According to the Institute for Women's Policy Research, Latinx women make 54 cents for every dollar that a white man makes, and black women are not expected to see equal pay until 2124.

Yes, that's more than a hundred years from now.

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

The dialogue around wage issues and pay inequity across race and industry is growing.

As teachers across the U.S. march for higher pay and school funding, immigrant restaurant workers strike for livable wages, and activists across the country demand that the minimum wage be raised to meet an unreal inflation rate, Adams' point about centering these voices is important.

Photo by J Pat Carter/Getty Images.

That doesn't mean that women in Hollywood can't or shouldn't fight for equal pay too.

Just because one makes a sizable income doesn't mean they're not allowed to decry patriarchal pay standards. Well-known women like Oprah Winfrey, Ava DuVernay, Mindy Kaling, and Tracee Ellis Ross are on the frontlines of the pay gap in Hollywood, and they've spoken out for women in their and other industries as well.

"I went to my boss at the time and I said everybody needs a raise," Winfrey once told Time magazine. "And he said, 'Why?' He actually said to me, 'They're only girls. They're a bunch of girls — what do they need more money for?' I go, 'Well, either they're going to get raises, or I'm going to sit down.' I will not work unless they get paid.'"

Whether Adams will become more vocal about the gender pay gap in Hollywood specifically remains to be seen, but she certainly deserves applause for offering some much-needed truth-telling on the importance of centering society's most vulnerable in the discussion of pay inequity.

Let's continue raising our voices in our own ways to make sure change happens for everyone.

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On Oct. 24, 2016, thousands of Iceland's women stopped working at 2:38 p.m.

At the time, the country's men were earning an average of 18% more for doing the same jobs.

So women decided they were going to work 18% fewer hours (hence walking off the job at 2:38 p.m.) for a day to prove a powerful point.

Thousands took off early and poured into the streets to voice their displeasure with the wage gap (which, hey, is actually a lot better than in most of the world but still needs to be fixed).

— (@)

In early March 2017, not even five months later, things may finally be changing, in no small part thanks to the work of these protestors.

Government officials in Iceland just announced new legislation that would require companies to open their books and prove they're providing equal pay for equal work.

According to USA Today, the measure is expected to be approved by parliament because lawmakers across the political spectrum all agree that the wage gap needs to be fixed ASAP.

(That must be nice.)

— (@)

"Equal rights are human rights," said Social Affairs and Equality Minister Thorsteinn Viglundsson. "We need to make sure that men and women enjoy equal opportunity in the workplace. It is our responsibility to take every measure to achieve that."

Iceland won't be the first nation to enforce equal pay, but its policy is considered to be one of the most aggressive yet as it targets any company, public or private, with at least 25 employees.

The government is hoping measures like this one will help to completely eradicate the pay gap in the next five years.

This is a massive victory, not just for women, but for the power of engaged citizens who refuse to accept inequality.

The news out of Iceland comes hot off the heels of A Day Without a Woman, which called for women all over the world to strike — from work, from home duties, from the multitude of tasks they juggle day in and day out — to make their value known to the world in no uncertain terms.

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A post shared by Áslaug Lárusdóttir (@aslauglar_) on Oct 24, 2016 at 10:04am PDT

Critics of the strike questioned its ability to make a difference since turnout would be smaller and more scattered than the massive Women's March that took place shortly after Inauguration Day.

But the citizens of Iceland are proof-positive that public demonstrations can and do work. It sounds trite, but when enough people come together to make their voices heard, people in power have no choice but to listen. Even if it seems like they're not.

Change may not happen overnight, or even in five months as it did in Iceland, but as the saying goes, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Sometimes, the arc just needs a couple thousand badass women forcing it to bend a little more quickly.

She makes big bucks for Hollywood for a bargain.

It was just announced that Scarlett Johansson is 2016's top grossing actor.

Yes, that means she made more money for the movies she worked on than any other actor — male or female.

Collectively, her films raked in $1.2 billion worldwide over the past year. She was also named highest grossing actress ever this past summer, thanks largely in part to her ass-kicking role of Black Widow in "The Avengers."

Not too shabby, Ms. Johansson.

Photo by AFP/Getty Images.

Before you throw on your party clothes and celebrate women finally besting men financially in Hollywood though, remember this — top grossing doesn't mean top earning.

Sure, Johansson may have made over a billion dollars for the producers who employed her, but a very small percentage of that actually went into her pocket.

Photo by Antony Harvey/Getty Images.

In fact, according to Forbes, if you weigh Johansson's salary against her overall gross, she's quite the bargain. For every $1 she earns, she brings in $88.60 for the studios, which actually makes her Hollywood's best female value.

Starting to see the problem?

She still makes a lot of money by average person standards, but the point is, she's not making what she's worth. And she's not alone.

In fact, when you look at the top earning actors in 2016, you won't see a woman's name in the top five.

Jennifer Lawrence. Photo by Matt Winkelmyer/Getty Images.

According to Forbes, the highest paid actress in 2016 was Jennifer Lawrence with $46 million — that puts her in sixth place. The highest paid actor overall was Dwayne Johnson (aka "The Rock") at $64.5 million — that's an $18.5 million wage gap right there.

And it gets worse. Forbes' annual list that tracks earnings from June 1, 2015, through June 1, 2016, shows the top 10 highest paid actresses combined earnings were $205 million — less than half that of the top 10 actors' earnings of $456.5 million, collectively.

Ageism also plays a part in this wage gender gap. All top 10 earning actors are over 40, whereas half the top 10 actresses are under 40, and all are under 50.

Needless to say, there's a lot that's wrong with the bias against women in Hollywood, but women are fighting harder than ever to change it — and they're starting to succeed more and more.

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Emmy Rossum, star of the hit show "Shameless" refused to return to work until she received equal pay to her co-star William H. Macy. Not only did she achieve her appropriate pay, she also received retroactive pay to even out the gap that existed in previous show seasons.

Felicity Jones negotiated the largest salary (far and away above her male co-stars) for her work on "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."

When Gillian Anderson, star of "The X-Files" television show and subsequent movies, discovered her salary was smaller than her co-star David Duchovny twice (first for the original series, then the 2015 revival), she called it out publicly, and succeeded in righting the wrong both times. She was compensated accordingly for her role in the TV series and film.

Of course, there's still more work to be done, and it's reflective of the gender inequality across the country.

Women face a gender wage gap in nearly every occupation in America. And that gap grows significantly wider for women of color. So while the salaries of these actresses aren't exactly relatable, the bias they face in the workplace is.

Because of their public influence, however, the stands these women are taking to rectify these inequalities can have a real impact on all of us. As such, it's important we support them and tell the world we too are tired of working hard and making less.

From Your Site Articles

These women didn't just talk the talk. They walked the walk.

Nov. 7, 2016, could have been a day like any other in France. Except it wasn't because thousands of women had a plan.

At precisely 4:34 p.m., all over the country, thousands of women walked out of their jobs. It wasn't violent. There wasn't a big scene. But it was lively and organized and meant to prove something big.

Feminist publication Les Glorieuses planned this organized protest, rallying women to stand up against France's deplorable gender pay gap: Men in France make 15.5% more than women.

In the U.S., women earn around 80% of what men earn. Women of color earn even less. In the U.K., overall, women make 24% less than men a year. Women in Iceland overall make 72 cents for every dollar a man makes. In Mexico, women reportedly earn 60% (just over half) of what men bring in.

The publication figured out that women were essentially working for free after 4:34 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2016 until the end of the year. So at 4:34 pm, women left the office.

Image by Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images.

City leaders got onboard in a show of solidarity too.

Anne Hidalgo, the city’s first female mayor, suspended a meeting of the city council at 4:34 p.m. at Paris City Hall. Staff at the famous Musée d’Orsay and several newspapers also stopped working at that precise time.

It was their brave way of saying: We're not standing for this any longer.

Image by Musée d'Orsay/Twitter.

The organizers of this event say they were inspired by a similar protest held in Iceland on Oct. 24, 2016.

Women in Reykjavik and across Iceland left their jobs at 2:38 p.m. on the 24th for similar reasons. Rebecca Amsellem, founder of Les Glorieuses, told VICE News the French movement was, "of course strongly inspired by the Icelandic women.”

It also seems that Les Glorieuses tapped into a momentum that was there for the taking. There are over 13 million women who work in France. They make up almost half (48%) of the country's entire workforce. And now, many of these women are no longer sitting by — literally. They are standing up and walking out in a beautiful display.

What started as a local movement with a Facebook invite to make their voices heard, turned into a much bigger statement.

This is a powerful example of woman saying: Enough is enough.

Image by Martine Tekaya, with permission.

The walkout attracted worldwide attention, and it appears to be the start of a larger conversation that could change things in a big way. People shared images and voiced their support on social media using the hashtag #7novembre16h34.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Education Secretary Najat Vallaud-Belkacem also noticed. Valls tweeted, "Equality between women and men must be at the heart of the Republic. At all times."

And this week, as folks mourn Hillary Clinton's loss, France's walkout hits home for women in the U.S. in an especially poignant way too.

The realization that women are still fighting an uphill battle has never rung more true than it does now that Donald Trump won the presidential election.

What we see in this walkout, though, is that women know how to fight. France is proof. Iceland is proof. The U.S. is proof. We are strong, and with effort and organization, we can change things.

Let's hope this is the beginning of a much-needed movement that leads to change — and not just in France. Because we know the gender pay gap is a worldwide problem. Merci beaucoup, ladies!

For thousands of women in Iceland on Monday, fighting for equal rights meant ditching out on work early.

Women across the country powered down their smartphones, closed their laptops, and canceled meetings at 2:38 p.m. to protest the gender pay gap, according to an Iceland Review report.

— (@)

Why 2:38? The protestors didn't just choose a random time.

Women in Iceland make roughly 18% less than their male counterparts, according to the latest European Union data. Which is good, compared to a lot of other countries — including the United States (which ranks 28th on the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Report; Iceland is first). But still pretty unfair.

Unless, of course, their work day was 18% shorter. Which means they'd get out at 2:38 p.m.

This isn't the first time women in Iceland have gone on strike.

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A photo posted by Áslaug Lárusdóttir (@aslauglar_) on Oct 24, 2016 at 10:04am PDT

In 1975, labor unions and women's rights organizations in the country organized the first Women's Day Off. According to a BBC report, 90% of women in the country participated, including domestic workers and stay-at-home mothers. The strike paralyzed the country, forcing many men to take their children into the office.

"Probably most people underestimated this day's impact at that time — later both men and women began to realise that it was a watershed," Styrmir Gunnarsson, a former newspaper editor, told the BBC.

Iceland's (and Europe's) first female president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, who joined that first protest 40 years ago, believes the mass demonstration helped pave the way for her election five years later.

This 2016 protest is the fourth time Iceland's women have gone on strike — and the time of the walkout has gotten progressively later with each one as women's relative wages have increased.

In 2005, protestors walked off the job at 2:08 p.m. In 2008, they left at 2:25.

Frelsi og feminismi. Við systurnar viljum jafnrétti núna STRAX!
A photo posted by Dóra Júlía Agnarsdóttir (@dorajulia) on Oct 24, 2016 at 8:46am PDT

But 2:38 p.m. is still not late enough!

At that rate, the wage gap in Iceland will take more than 50 years to close on its own. A WEF report estimates that the global wage gap may take as long as 118 years to sew up. But if the first protest changed the way the country values women's labor, then perhaps the pressure from more massive events can speed up the clock.

Women of Iceland are gathering at Austurvöllur today to protest against the gender wage gap #kvennafrí
A photo posted by Reykjavik Grapevine (@rvkgrapevine) on Oct 24, 2016 at 8:54am PDT

Perhaps on a Women's Day Off not too long in the future, they'll be skipping out at the end of the day with their male colleagues.

Hopefully happy hour will still be running.

From Your Site Articles

How would you feel if someone shortchanged your daughter's lemonade stand? Probably not so good.

Maybe you'd first wonder, "What kind of schmuck cheats a little kid?"

All images via Make It Work/YouTube.

But then you'd probably want justice. And if you couldn't give it to them in that moment they're doubting humanity, maybe you'd turn it into a teachable moment.

That's exactly the idea with a video for Make It Work, a campaign focused on policies that can help working families. The two-minute film was directed by Issa Rae, who's best known for her YouTube comedy series "Awkward Black Girl."

In an interview with Essence, Rae explained why she decided to get involved:

“I was one of many Americans who just didn't know men and women weren't being paid the same. ... So I figured if I didn't know, lots of other people didn't know."

What she produced is a kid-friendly take on a problem affecting millions of women.

Daughters, sisters, moms, aunts, and grandmas are shortchanged every day by the gender pay gap.

For every dollar men earn...

...women earn less than 80 cents.

Today, women earn on average about $11,000 less per year than men for the exact same jobs.

The Institute for Women's Policy Research says if wage growth for women continues at its current pace, it'll be the year 2059 by the time we see equal pay for men and women. "We're slated to have flying cars and humans on Mars first," wrote Rae. "I wish I were joking."

But pay equality could take longer for women of color. For example, black women earn only 63 cents for every dollar earned by men...

...and Latina women earn little more than half of what men make.

The gender pay gap is leaving black and Latina women roughly $22,000 and $25,000 short, respectively, every year. Again, for the exact same work.

Sometimes, convincing our bosses and officials that the gender pay gap is wrong feels like pulling teeth.

When the perpetrators of pay inequality in the video are challenged, they respond with excuses...

...avoidance...

...victim-blaming...

...and logic even they can't defend.

Just as you wouldn't stand for someone cheating your kid at a lemonade stand, so should we be about the pay gap.

Why? Because "gone are the days of men bringing home the bacon while women fry it up in the pan," say the advocates at Make It Work. "The world has changed, and our rules need to sprint to catch up."

Watch Issa Rae's video for Make It Work, and if you learn something new, do working women and their families a solid by passing on this story.