Amy Schumer on Equal Pay, Girls Scouts’ Turf War, and Women Light Up…

As women in Hollywood continue to speak up about deserving pay equal to that of their male co-stars, comedian Amy Schumer has come forward with a slightly different take.

On Instagram on Wednesday, the Trainwreck star posted that she doesn’t “deserve” the same pay as fellow comedians Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock, given the two stars’ lengthy, acclaimed careers. Schumer proclaimed her belief that “women deserve equal pay.”

“However I don’t believe I deserve equal pay to Chris and Dave. They are legends and 2 of the greatest comics of all time. I would like to say that I have been selling out arenas these last couple years. Something a female comic has never done. That’s a big deal to me, especially because I know I do my best every night on stage for the audience and they have a good time.”

Her post responded to reports that she’d retroactively negotiated for higher pay from Netflix for her show The Leather Special after learning that Rock and Chappelle had each commanded $20 million for their own specials. Schumer initially earned $11 million for her show, but Variety reports that she “received significantly more” after raising how her compensation compared to Rock’s and Chappelle’s.

“I did ask for more than the initial offer,” Schumer wrote on Wednesday. “I will continue to work my ass off and be the best performer I can be. The reports of me ‘demanding’ or ‘insisting’ on equal pay to them aren’t true.”

Accusations of bias against female entertainers have dogged Hollywood in earnest since the 2014 Sony hack, when leaked emails revealed that Jennifer Lawrence was compensated less than her male co-stars in American Hustle. Since then, female stars have come forward to demand more money. Gillian Anderson, for instance, was offered half as much money as co-star David Duchovny for the revival of The X-Files in 2016, and requested more. In January, actress Jessica Chastain, star of Zero Dark Thirty, revealed that she lost a major movie role after asking for the same pay as a male co-star. And Shameless star Emily Rossum famously held up the show’s eighth season renewal with an equal-pay standoff with producers.

Schumer’s post on the issue, meanwhile, brings up a good point: that the equal pay fight isn’t about everyone earning the exact same dollar amount. It’s about ensuring that women are paid just as much as men, when all other things—like job level and experience—are equal.

—@clairezillman

EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA

Casting callThis BBC photo essay profiles the women who work in the male-dominated fishing industry in Southwest England. Annie Gilber, a commercial skipper in Dorset, got into the profession through her now-husband. "[He] asked if I would like to crew for him," she said. "I absolutely loved it. Since then, I have only missed a couple of days’ fishing in 13 years."BBC

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Independent

THE AMERICAS

One tough cookie

The Girls Scouts of the USA are accusing the Boy Scouts of America of having a secret plan to recruit girls to its ranks. In a scathing letter, organization president Kathy Hopinkah Hannan accused the Boy Scouts of "surreptitiously testing the appeal of a girls’ offering to millennial parents" and of making "disparaging and untrue remarks" about Girl Scout programming. Single-gender programming, she argues, is the best way to create a "safe place for girls to learn and thrive."

Coins2Day

Isn't that rich

A messy dispute between Canada's richest woman Sherry Brydson and the man who once ran an investment company of which Brydson is sole director and executive chair is headed to trial next month. The courtroom showdown promises to be heated. James Lawson, chair of the Canadian Football League who once ran the investment firm Westerkirk Capital, has sued Brydson for wrongful termination, claiming $24 million in damages. Brydson has countersued, alleging that Lawson used his time at Westerkirk to enrich himself and "utilized his office to indulge himself in hard core racist and misogynistic pornography."

Financial Post

Baby, we were born to run

In the lead-up to Women's Equality Day on Saturday, Time's Olivia Waxman takes a look at how American women ran for office even before they had the right to vote. An impressive 3,586 women campaigned for elected positions in the half-century before women gained nationwide suffrage in 1920.

Time

ASIA-PACIFIC

Mama drama

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BBC

Smoke signals

Ozy has the story of how the tobacco industry is courting women in Indonesia with ads featuring cigarettes in “feminine” packaging or alongside slender, attractive women. The efforts are working, with the NGO Smoke Free Bandung reporting a 400% increase in regular female smokers there in the past five years.

Ozy