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Actress Claire Foy Will Receive $275K in Salary Back Pay for “The Crown”

Claire Foy in ‘The Crown’ (HelloGiggles)

Within the past few years, pay inequality continues to be a reoccurring topic. Now some companies are finally stepping up and doing something about it.

It had been previously reported that actress Claire Foy was paid significantly less for her work on the Netflix series “The Crown” than her co-star Matt Smith. This error is made more egregious by the fact that Foy plays the title character Queen Elizabeth II. (Smith plays her husband Prince Philip.) The thinking behind the pay disparity was that Smith was more well-known from his work on “Doctor Who.”

Foy is now slated to receive salary backpay to make up for this not-so-small slight. She’ll receive $275K in backpay. We don’t know for sure whether this completely makes up the wage gap between Foy and Smith: Foy’s salary per episode has been previously reported, but Smith’s never has.

Left Bank, the production company responsible for “The Crown,” has since issued this mandate:

“Going forward, no one gets paid more than the Queen.”

Damn right.

1 Out of 9 Men Have Oral HPV

Human Papillomavirus Type 16 (University of Washington National STD Curriculum)

We’ve all heard about human papillomavirus (HPV). But there’s one instance where HPV affects more men than women.

According to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine, oral HPV occurs much more often in men than women. The study examined data pulled from the “National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2011 to 2014,” and found that 1 out of every 9 men have oral HPV. This translates to 11M men in the U.S.

Oral HPV is much more rare for women: The study discovered that only 3.2% of women had the infection. This percentage translates to 3.2M women. (By comparison, cervical cancer affects 12.8M+ of women.)

38K+ new cases of cancers related to HPV were diagnosed between 2008-2012. These cancers were diagnosed in 59% of men and 41% of women.

By The Numbers: Sexual Assault Statistics

Sexual Assault definition (Planned Parenthood Action Fund)

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and I couldn’t let the month pass without sharing some important statistics around sexual assault. They’re not the most fun stats, but they’re very important.

1 in 5 women will be raped within their lifetime.
51%+ of female rape victims were raped by an intimate partner.
1 in 71 men will be raped within their lifetime.
52%+ of male rape victims were raped by an acquaintance.
An estimated 17.7M women have been raped since 1998.
21% of trans college students have been sexually assaulted.
American Indians are twice as likely to experience sexual assault than other races.
49%+ of multiracial women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime.
Women and men with intellectual disabilities are seven times more likely to be the victims of sexual assaults than women and men without intellectual disabilities.
80.6K inmates in jails and prisons experience sexual violence.

#ThrowbackThursday: Sexual Assault Statistics, 2016

Sexual Assault graphic (The Daily Orange)

Syracuse University’s student newspaper The Daily Orange published this graphic two years ago to mark Sexual Assault Awareness Month. (That’s April, FYI.) The graphic brings awareness to data centered on sexual assaults on public and private college campuses.

A couple of these stats are especially chilling: 90% of victims do not report the sexual assault. And the victim knows the perpetrator in 80% of sexual assault cases.

So. Many. Problems. Here.

Grindr Allowed Third-Party Companies to See Users’ HIV Status

Grindr Logo (TechCrunch)

Yesterday, “BuzzFeed” broke the news that Grindr, the dating app aimed at gay men, had been selling users’ data to two third-party companies. Among the data sold were users’ HIV status.

Grindr admitted that it sold data to Apptimize and Localytics. (No word on how these companies were using the data.) Grindr users can provide their HIV status and date of their last HIV test in their profile on the app. The two third-party companies would’ve had easily identifiable information because the HIV status data was sent along with “users’ GPS data, phone ID and email.”

Norwegian research nonprofit company SINTEF was the first entity to find the problem. Though Grinder said that the information sent was encrypted (simply put, made into a code that’s not easily broken), the company also revealed that the data provided from Grindr could be further hacked.

In recent months, Grindr has made more strides related to HIV. The app nows offers ad-targeting to HIV-testing websites, and users can sign up for HIV-test reminders.

Though Grindr announced plans later yesterday to discontinue sharing HIV data with the third-party companies, the damage has already been done. It will be interesting to see if this data breach will affect the app’s number of users in the near future.

Grindr reports 3.6M+ “daily active users” worldwide.

Jordan Peele Makes History as the First African-American to Win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar

Jordan Peele wins the Best Original Screenplay Oscar at the 2018 Oscars (Time)

HOLLYWOOD, CA – MARCH 04: Writer/director Jordan Peele accepts Best Original Screenplay for ‘Get Out’ onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Writer/director Jordan Peele made history at the Oscars last night: He became the first African-American to win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar! Peele won for his critically acclaimed and popular debut feature “Get Out.” (If you haven’t seen it yet, SEE IT NOW!!)

Peele was only the fourth African-American person to be nominated for the category. Past nominees were Suzanne de Passe for “Lady Sings the Blues” (which came out in 1972), Spike Lee for “Do the Right Thing” (1989) and John Singleton for “Boyz N the Hood (1991).

Congrats to Peele, and I can’t wait to see what else he does!!

By The Numbers: African-American Best Director Oscar Nominees

‘Moonlight,’ 2016 (Collider)

Jordan Peele hit the trifecta of Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay) with his debut feature “Get Out.” (Definitely see it if you haven’t yet!!) Peele achieved this with his debut feature, making him only the third director and the first African-American director to do so.

Here are some stats on African-American nominees for the Best Director Oscar:

Estimated Number of Best Director Oscar Nominees, 1927-2017: 451

This number covers 90 years of the Academy Awards, with an average of 5 directors nominated per year.

Number of African-American Best Director nominees: 5

John Singleton for “Boyz N The Hood” (1991)
Lee Daniels for “Precious” (2009)
Steve McQueen for “12 Years a Slave” (2013)
Barry Jenkins for “Moonlight” (2016)
Jordan Peele for “Get Out” (2017)

Percentage of African-American Best Director nominees to total Best Director nominees: 1.11%

Decades with the highest number of African-American Best Director nominees:

2010s: 3
2000s: 1
1990s: 1

African-American Best Director winners: 0

I want Peele to win!!

These numbers are terrible! The Academy needs to not only recognize, but reward, inclusive stories and storytellers!!

#ThrowbackThursday: John Singleton and “Boyz N The Hood,” 1991

Boyz N The Hood, made by John Singleton in 1991, was the story of three friends — played by(from left) Morris Chestnut, Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Ice Cube – growing up in South Central Los Angeles.

The first African-American nominee for Best Director was John Singleton. Like Peele, Singleton was nominated for his debut film. Singleton’s film “Boys n the Hood” featured Ice Cube (in his acting debut), Cuba Gooding Jr. and Angela Bassett. Singleton’s nomination also made history because he was the youngest-ever nominee for Best Director, nominated at age 24.

This year, Jordan Peele hit the trifecta of Oscar nominations with “Get Out,” receiving nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Peele is only the fifth African-American director to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar.

GLAAD Reports 11% Increase in LGBTQ Discrimination in 2017

Rainbow Flag (Sauk Valley)

It’s no secret that the LGBTQ community has faced discrimination throughout history. And it looked like that things were getting better (to rip from Dan Savage). But the data tells a different story.

LGBT organization GLAAD recently released the results from its Accelerating Acceptance study at the World Economic Forum. GLAAD has put out this study every year since 2014 to measure attitudes towards people who identify as LGBTQ. This year’s study polled 2.1K+ people, and found that, we’re not making progress as one might reasonably expect. We’re actually backsliding.

The study found that non-LGBTQ people have become more uncomfortable in everyday situations where they might interact with members of the LGBTQ community. Situations included “having LGBT members at my place of worship” and “seeing a same-sex couple holding hands.” The percentage of respondents reporting discomfort ticked upwards at least two percentage points year-over-year (2016 vs. 2017) in each category.

Non-LGBT people are also shying away from calling themselves allies: The term dropped 2% in preference year-over-year. “Detached supporters” (defined as non-LGBT people whose comfort level depended on the situation) gained 4% in popularity.

LGBT people also reported more discrimination in 2017, leading to an 11% increase in reported harassment from 2016. It doesn’t take a genius to draw parallels between this stat and the kind of person who currently occupies the Oval Office.

Here’s where it gets interesting: Despite the decreases in the numbers of non-LGBT people reporting being comfortable around the LGBT community, the reported support for equal rights for LGBT people held steady year-over-year at 79%.

One thing that’s unclear is the methodology used: Are these results self-reported, or were respondents selected by another method? And did people lie about supporting equal rights, but tell the truth everywhere else? I’d love to know this.

This study is very disheartening. We still have a long way to go until it truly gets better.

Jordan Peele Is the First African-American to Receive The Trifecta Oscar Nominations

Jordan Peele (The Hollywood Reporter)

Jordan Peele just had the best day ever.

Oscar nominations hit yesterday, and the nominations for Peele’s movie “Get Out” put him in rarefied territory. “Get Out” received nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay for Peele.

These honors make Peele the third filmmaker to get the trifecta of honors as a first-time director. (Yes, hard to believe, but “Get Out” was his first feature!) Warren Beatty and James L. Brooks preceded Peele in this trifecta with their respective features “Heaven Can Wait” and “Terms of Endearment.” Not only that, but Peele is the first African-American to achieve this!

Congrats Jordan! I can’t wait to see what comes next for you! Crossing my fingers that you’ll win all Oscars!!

Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang

Statistics. Economics. Sex.

Men