Mila Kunis vows to stand up to gender bias

In new essay, Jewish Hollywood star recalls moments when men demeaned or threatened her career because she was a woman

LOS ANGELES — Mila Kunis says in a new essay that anytime she experiences gender bias at work, she’s going to speak up about it.

The 33-year-old Jewish actress-producer says in the essay published on the Medium website Thursday that women have been conditioned to believe that their livelihoods might be threatened if they speak out against sexist behavior.

She says a producer once told her she’d “never work in this town again” when she refused to pose “semi-naked” for a men’s magazine to promote a film.

More recently, she says, another producer described her in a business email as “one of biggest actors in Hollywood and soon to be Ashton’s wife and baby momma!!!”

Kunis, who is expecting her second child with husband Ashton Kutcher, said the comment “reduced my value to nothing more than my relationship to a successful man and my ability to bear children.” She pulled out of the project.

She characterized the remark as one of the “micro-aggressions that devalue the contributions and worth of hard working women” and promised not to stand for it anymore.

Kunis writes that she is “fortunate that I have reached a place that I can stop compromising and stand my ground, without fearing how I will put food on my table.”

She says she hopes that by adding her voice to the conversation, working women feel more empowered and “a little less alone.”