Debra Messing called out the E! networks refusal to pay female hosts as much as male hosts—in an interview with the E! network.
Debra Messing called out the E! network's refusal to pay female hosts as much as male hosts—in an interview with the E! network. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

You may be feeling an unfamiliar sense of optimism after Sunday night's Golden Globes, where Oprah Winfrey and other black-clad celebs used their acceptance speeches to talk about #MeToo, gender equality, and the dawning of a new era, where the pussy-grabbers of the world are finally held accountable for their actions. Welp, I'm here to ruin it for you, because amid the glowing Monday morning recaps of the Golden Globes, comes this unfortunate reminder: Women still make less money than men for doing the same goddamn work.

Take The Today Show. Hoda Kotb, the co-anchor who took over for handsy ol' Matt Lauer after he was pushed out for allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct, is making $18 million dollars less than the creeper she replaced. In fact, even when you combine Kotb's salary with that of co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, both women are still making $9 million less than Lauer. Combined.

Kotb is reportedly uninterested in dwelling on the pay gap, and it's not hard to see why: I imagine it's a bit difficult to stay enthused about a new position when the dude before you made a literal fortune more to sit on the same couch and pitch the same softballs. But some women are speaking out: Perhaps the second best moment of the Golden Globes came via Debra Messing, Eva Longoria, Laura Dern, and Sarah Jessica Parker, who all used red carpet interviews to call out the E! network and its refusal to pay former host Catt Sadler as much as her male co-host, Jason Kennedy. (Sadler revealed in December that she resigned from the network after discovering that Kennedy made twice as much as she did.)

"I was so shocked to hear that E! doesn't believe in paying their female co-hosts as much as their male co-hosts," said Messing before the award ceremony during a red carpet interview with E!'s Giuliana Rancic. "I miss Catt Sadler. So we stand with her. That's something that can change tomorrow, you know. We want people to start having this conversation that women are just as valuable as men."

This is not just an American or a rich people problem. Last week, Carrie Gracie, the BBC's China editor, abruptly resigned from her post after learning that the men in her equivalent position make at least 50 percent more than the women, which has been illegal in the UK since 1970 (not that that matters much: It's also been illegal in the U.S. since 1963).

"Salary disclosures the BBC was forced to make six months ago revealed not only unacceptably high pay for top presenters and managers but also an indefensible pay gap between men and women doing equal work," Gracie wrote on her website. "These revelations damaged the trust of BBC staff. For the first time, women saw hard evidence of what they’d long suspected, that they are not being valued equally." Gracie will continue to work for the BBC but, she says, she will return to her previous post in the BBC newsroom where she expects to be paid equally.

So if the U.K. and the U.S. are failing on the equal pay front, despite parity being written into law, what will it take to actually tackle this very fucking annoying and sexist problem? Well, as of this year, Iceland—where the pay gap also exists—is requiring any business with at least 25 workers to prove that they pay men and women the same wages for the same work. And if they can't prove it, they have to fix it.

World: Take note.