She was paid equally.

That is how negotiations work.

and offered Duchovny half of what they had offered her?

Doubtful.

It is his business to decide if enough or to pass on it. You wouldn't have people freaking out about it I'm sure.

No one would care if he were paid equally. Fair is not the same as equal btw.

for the success of a show.

But that would be debatable in this case

But only someone who's trolling or has never seen the show would think it's worth debating.

I don't know her financial situation, I would expect that would affect her decision. Hope she can afford to tell them to shove it.

the sexual discrimination is there, that they thought they had a chance of getting away with that offer.

The show only went off the air because David quit. Naturally, he has more leverage.

But of course you would disagree.

more than he did and would do it, no matter what the salary was.

Which was obviously wrong. She insisted on equity and she got it. He had no more leverage than she did.

What we do know is that Anderson would have been willing to continue working before Duchovny quit. that is leverage. Pretty simple.

I am not assuming anything.

after her successes in the intervening years.

Your statement reads "Naturally, the motorcycle can't function without the front wheel." Nor can it function without the back wheel either.

even though she was finally getting parity during the original series.

Good for her.

It is astonishing they thought they could get away with this today. Hopefully this sort of shaming attention will motivate producers to be a little less overtly sexist. I don't expect much but at least if they know an angry populace is watching they'll won't be so brazen.

Amazing.

Come on cheapskates pay her the same damn wage as David😡😡😡😡😡😡

Naturally, he has more leverage when negotiating for a return appearance on the show.

Now tell me, with that in mind, should she be compensated the same as Duchovny?

She is coming off a critically acclaimed role in Hannibal. I agree the plug should have been pulled when Duchovny bowed out, but I think you could make the same argument for Anderson. The show worked because of the chemistry between them. The show's producers made a mistake romantically involving them, but I think most series should end at about 5 years anyway. I would have a difficult time finding very many shows of this type that had good seasons past the first five.

I agree 2x pay seems high, but I don't know how the negotiations went: was he aggressively pursued? We don't know.

They're both critically acclaimed actors; her coming off Hannibal only means something if she had another offer lined up to negotiate on the back of.

Take the marbles out of your mouth, Dave

than he was.

She obviously wasn't, because she turned down their pathetic offer and insisted on parity.

He's got a longer shelf life by definition, in this sexist ageist world, than she does.

He could afford to take more risks and leave a highly successful show. Turns out she's one of the comparatively few females who still has options in her 40s (god forbid ensuing decades) and did well afterward, but that factor alone takes this out of some mythical land of gender-neutral market negotiations.

You don't get to just take a snapshot of two people at a given point in time to make a comparison of their offers and ignore the systemic sexism and racism in which they're operating.

The producers of the show are the ones who make employment offers. They in fact do take a snapshot of the two at the current time. That's how free markets work.

They're enforced by a contractual and regulatory framework determined by government policy that allows certain parts to be "free" or invisible while regulating other parts that favor dominant interests.

The illusion of the invisible hand of the free market is one of the best propaganda techniques of neoclassical economics and late-stage capitalism.

So, if power operates through personal intimidation, internalization of shame and modesty expectations on the part of females through years of conditioning, reduction of opportunities outside the bartering transaction through "natural" means so that woman has to accept less--then what you do is "not" regulate that transaction.

Voila! Women "freely" accept less because they don't "negotiate well," "lean in," whatever. It's the woman's fault. It's the free hand. It's natural.

And Actor's Equity does set some terms of barter.

I'm done too. Have a good night.

Not sure how you can have the X Files without Scully. Wouldn't work. She should definitely be compensated equally on that basis alone.

article it indicates she was paid the same so apparently the answer is yes she should be.

They don't really have a choice, the show was about Scully and Mulder.

How do you figure her worth on the show doesn't factor?

crazy. I never knew they used to have her stand behind Mulder.

Whoever jeopardized the revival by making Gillian this derisory pay offer should be scheduled for abduction asap.

I thought Anderson was the star of the show.

kind of weak, by comparison.

Maybe only because hers was so strong.

If the show was about him and not some weird stuff going on. I wouldn't have watched.

But she might have been.

In fact we have a series called Bones. Now, I think Anderson's character is more interesting so that could work even better than Bones and that is a hit show.

As Mulder got crazier and crazier, she was the stable, sane foundation that gave the audience an entrance point to the weirdness happening all around. I always felt she was the main character. She was the everywoman.

Maybe she needs a new agent?

an equal salary with him during the original series, and her career success since then, the studio thought they could get away with offering her only half his salary now.

A lot of TV actors/actresses have made demands where the studio has said "no" and either killed off the character or found someone else to do the part.

In fact, that should be assumed in most negotiations.

what? She does not know her place?

...should prove to anyone that she is worth TWICE at least what her co-star earns.

She was the BEST Miss Havisham I’ve EVER seen and her Lady Dedlock was as fine as any I’ve ever seen.

Fuck that noise.

have you seen her in The Fall?

Broadchurch. That was a great series.

So I guess what you’re saying is I need to watch The Fall? N’est-ce-Pas?

"Luther" also came highly recommended. Have you seen that?

Run, don't walk, and add them to your Netflix queue. Also "River", if you haven't watched it yet.

Yeah he did Californication (which was awesome), but he's hardly a household name to warrant double her pay. Never did any major movies.

They tried to pull a fast one and got caught. Can't have Mulder without Scully, nobody would watch. Glad she got equal pay in the end.

Him, not so much. I can't understand it.

They lowballed her, she declined, she won. She proved she had leverage in the situation, and they needed her more than she needed them.

That's how things get done. Not hoping the patriarchy will offer you an equal amount of money. She had power and she used it.

Gillian Anderson is an excellent actress and every bit as integral to the show as Duchovny. Granted, she never had a Bree Sharp song about her, but even so.

She was also excellent in Hannibal. I'll watch anything with her in it.

It is owned by Fox. The entire company is ran by dinosaurs. What do you expect?

The Netflix streaming product of Grace & Frankie which stars Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin were paid equal amounts as Jim Waterstein and Martin Sheen while the two women were billed as the star and the men were billed as "supporting" actors.

With the help of a strong fan base and I sure very good lawyers, the women got a raise.

but from what I know they both should be paid the same. Maybe I'm crazy. But for once I agree with pnwmom.

my 2 cents

The fact that fellow DUers are defending the inequality. Did I stumble upon RU by mistake?

The real story is "How to negotiate salary".

that doesn't see inequality as a problem.

makes this site suck. They claim their argument is it's okay because she got what she wanted! What's the problem, honey? Like they would give a shit either way. They think they're being clever, but don't realize that to anyone who isn't a knuckledragger, they look like fools.

When I was a car dealership, the first offer they gave me was HORRIBLE. I would have walked out. After several hours and arm-twisting, they dropped the price significantly. The difference of the final deal to the one originally offered was nearly $100 a month. And they threw in the platinum maintenance plan for free that included free oil changes.

Now if the next customer is a woman and walks in and takes the first offer and ends up paying $100 more a month than me......is that sexism? No. It's being a bad shopper.

Perhaps the two actors were originally offered the same, but Duchovny negotiated his higher.

price than the starting price offered the man.

They're missing, or purposely ignoring, the deeper, more complicated, issues at the heart of this example of institutional inequality.

It's not far at all from the RW BS argument that if only poor people would work hard they'd be rich.

The mind boggles.

If they offered him something and he said, "No, I want this much" and they gave it to him, then I'm a little annoyed by it. The fact she was able to negotiate up would just mean they were trying to go as low as possible with either or. If they offered him more from the start, then I find that extremely messed up. They are both equally important to the show, and without either it wouldn't feel right.

For whatever the failings, if Gillian received equal pay for her work, we have made progress. We owe her, and women like her who stand for equality, gratitude and praise.

Not so much for her...so I'm not totally surprised.

While Duchovny had his semi-autobiographical show about his sex addiction on Showtime, Anderson was working her ass off in the UK with tons of movies and some very successful TV shows (The Fall being one of my favorites).

Most folks over here in the US have heard of Californication...

Less so for Andersons 'UK work'...

Maybe if the BBC picked up the X-Files it would have gone the other way. In any case, she seems to have made her case.

My point was that it wasnt completely unreasonable to offer the less famous of the two, in US markets, less money.

Of course your bias instructs you to believe as such... regardless of its nonsensical premise.

she be paid more than Duchovny. She is a fantastic actress and her character is far more essential because she is much stronger. Fox Mulder is a wishy washy fool.

I'm glad she stuck by her guns.

She was far better at acting in Hannibal than she was two decades ago and stole every scene she was in.

While their offer to Duchovny was obviously buoyed by his 2015 album Hell or Highwater.