It can be hard to find the words to describe just how frustrating it is that gender inequality is still so pervasive, even in the wealthiest nation on the planet. From compensation to representation, women lag so far behind men that the World Economic Forum estimates it will take more than two centuries to achieve gender equality in the United States.
Disparities between men and women have been discussed ad nauseam; it can feel as though we’re out of points to make and tactics to use. But comedian Sarah Silverman is creative. Thanks to Melinda Gates and a new (hilarious) PSA, Silverman summed up her exasperation like so: “How is it that I can order a bag of dick-shaped gummy bears with same-day delivery, but I have to wait 208 years for gender equality?”
It’s a good question, and one that Gates has tried to solve (in, uh, different words) for decades. Earlier this summer she addressed the issue in an op-ed and wrote an entire book, The Moment of Lift, to discuss in detail some of the solutions she believes can help women get ahead. But ever the realist, Gates knows that even the most well-intentioned articles and books have a limited reach. So to inch the needle forward, she’s decided to take the fight to social media.
The Equality Can’t Wait campaign aims to accelerate progress when it comes to gender issues in America, building on the framework that Gates outlined in her recent book and inviting both men and women to share their stories about how crucial it is to close the gender gap. To kick it off, Gates didn’t want to release another mournful PSA. Instead she tapped actor and director Natasha Lyonne to corral over a dozen comedians to, well, roast the problem.
In under five minutes, Silverman—with Ilana Glazer, Abbi Jacobson, Uzo Aduba, Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, John Mulaney, Margaret Cho, Natasha Rothwell, and more—cracks jokes about how absurd it is that genuine gender balance is still several lifetimes into the future.
As Mulaney puts it, “That’s the most specific bad news I’ve ever heard!” Or as Aduba fumes, “That’s 1,456 dog years. I’m telling you, bitches never get a break.”
Toward the end of the video, the conversation does turn serious and it becomes clear that the reason it’s so hard to talk about sexism is because the issue is so, so vast. It’s not just unequal wages or discrimination or harassment or bias. It’s all of that. And then some. When the music turns somber, Aduba explains that two more centuries of the status quo means not a single woman alive now will ever experience a fairer, more equal world. Glazer recounts sexual harassment. Silverman reminds viewers that some elected leaders have in fact tried to turn the clock back, weaponizing their power to strip women of the rights we do have.
“The statistics are abysmal,” writes Lyonne in an email. “So the best entry point to tackle an absurdity this profound is to come at it sideways, through comedy, because what else can you do?” Lyonne explains her aim with the campaign was to “create a buoyancy as an antidote to the depressing facts—something that would lift us up, activate, unify, and motivate rather than give up under the weight.” When it came time to cast comedians for the short, she reached out to people she knew cared about the issue, a group that includes men.
“Some of our great feminists and allies are men, so there was never a question that I wanted to work with both men and women on this,” Lyonne writes. “We’re all in this together and need each other to stay engined and to effect change. Melinda Gates is inspirational in many ways, including that she is so deeply invested in enacting immediate change. She has dedicated her life to follow-through and activism, and I’m so proud for us to be aligned with her in this cause to try to make the world a better, more equitable place for the next generation of young women to have a fighting chance.”
To make that happen, Gates wants people to “start a conversation about what needs to change” and use the hashtag #EqualityCantWait to share their own experiences with the problem. Ahead of the campaign’s launch, Gates talked to Glamour about humor, sexism, and how she learned she could help fix some of the world’s most complex problems.
Glamour: There is so much bad news and so much information to consume. This PSA is about an even bigger, badder trend that’s happening in the background of all that. Is it hard to get people to focus on it?
Melinda Gates:
I think we as a society celebrate these high points in life, which is great. When this wave of women came into Congress in the last midterm elections, I thought, Fabulous. All the news was, “Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous.” But if you looked at the data points you went, “Oh, gosh. The uptick [in women’s representation] is only a slight percentage,” right? Yes, we’re making progress, but it’s too slow. I wanted to make sure we had the overall look at it. In the United States we think, “Oh, we get a little bit of change here, a little bit of change there,” and we celebrate it. But we have to ask ourselves, “How far are we?”
The PSA includes men, and of course that makes sense since men need to be part of the solution. But it still felt novel. Why did you want to have men’s voices in the campaign?
We have to have men. We have to have enlightened men who are for women. I know tons of them. Men have to be part of this conversation, or we will never get there. We will make a mistake if we think it’s just about women. We’re trying to right society so it’s right for the males and females; my son, and my two daughters.
You spend a lot of time thinking about these issues, which are wildly depressing. How do you switch gears and even laugh about it?
I think I used to compartmentalize more than I do now. I’ve learned not to compartmentalize, actually. I think you have to live a pretty integrated life. If something irritates me or frustrates me or makes me sad, I let it irritate me. I let it frustrate me. I let it make me sad. You have to take that all in because that’s what fuels you then to go create change. You have to think about this stuff deeply, and you have to let it sink into your heart. This stuff is painful, and it’s painful that we’re still in this place. Then you use that to fuel the work that you do. I think the workplace for so long said to women, “Keep it all together here, and act like you don’t have that thing at home because we need you to be productive.” Now, you can’t go into meetings crying your head off. But we are whole human beings. We’re starting to learn from good research that the people who are most productive and happiest in the their work culture are ones who can bring their whole selves to work.
The tone of the PSA is refreshingly not earnest. It’s absurd and dark and hilarious. What was it like to see? And what is the hope about what comes next?
Each comedian comes at the issue from a different perspective, but to see the “Are you kidding me?” piece of it—I really enjoyed that piece of it. The statistics are daunting. They’re damning, but they don’t have to be that way. They’re not our destiny. My hope is that when this goes live, people will start to see it and go, “Yes, I want to participate in this too. I want to share what I think is crazy about this in 10 seconds or 20 seconds.”
We all see it. We live it. Now we have to talk about it.
At what point did you realize you were a person who was empowered to make a difference on an issue this massive? When did you feel you had the power to say, “I am a person who can change this”?
Honestly, not until 2012. I led a huge coalition around the world to put contraceptives back on the global health agenda. It had come off primarily because of the political issues in the United States. When I saw how important this issue was based on all my travels, and I looked at the data about what we were and weren’t doing, I built this coalition. It seemed impossible to me when our tiny little team and I started that we would figure out how to do this. When we had the moment in 2012 where we had this big conference and led the initiative and got worldwide attention, I went, “Hmm, now it’s time to do more things.” That’s when I finally started to say, “Okay, some of these society issues that I see, and I see from all over the world, we can tackle them systematically.”
I wasn’t ready to take it on yet, but I knew it was possible. If you take on something as hard as contraceptives where there are many people pulling against you—men pulling against you, different religions pulling against you—you know you can take on almost anything.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
