Doctor Who: Jodie Whittaker’s pay equity is important and part of a larger conversation

Jodie Whittaker revealed she will receive equal pay for her work on Doctor Who. And hopefully someday this won’t be news.

Jodie Whittaker revealed that she’s being paid the same amount as her Doctor Who predecessor Peter Capaldi. This is huge, but it shouldn’t be. But now that gender discrimination and the gender wage gap are being talked about so much lately, maybe we can get to a time where a woman making the same as a man for the same job won’t be such big news.

Whittaker revealed at the National Television Awards that she’s not suffering from the gender pay gap on Doctor Who and that she made sure she’d be paid just as much as the 12^th Time Lord.

“It’s an incredibly important time and the notion of [equal pay] should be supported,” Whittaker said. “It’s a bit of a shock that it’s a surprise to everyone that it should be supported!”

This is an even bigger win because the BBC had a huge scandal about the gender wage gap back in July. News broke that two thirds of the people earning more than 150,000 pounds were men and that their top seven highest-earners were men.

But the tides are changing. In recent months we’ve been talking more and more about women’s worth. And women are fighting for more power and equal pay because of course they’re worth the same as men.

Time’s Up, for example, is fighting for the 50/50 by 2020 initiative, which is fighting for pay parity in Hollywood by 2020.

But we’re not there yet. Just recently, fans were shocked to learn that Mark Wahlberg was paid $1.5 million for the All the Money in the World reshoots compared to Michelle Williams getting paid $80 per diem. What made things worse was that agents at WME represented them both.

After a severe backlash, though, Wahlberg announced he was donating the money to Time’s Up in Williams’ name.

Mo’Nique, meanwhile, brought the fact that the issue of equal pay affects women of color particularly hard to the forefront when she called for a boycott against Netflix. Taking to Instagram, Mo’Nique said Netflix offered her $500,000 to do a comedy special while Amy Schumer was offered $11 million and Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock were offered $20 million. Schumer actually negotiated for more after she heard how much Chappelle and Rock were offered. She wound up getting about $13 million.

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Getting a female doctor on Doctor Who was a long-awaited, overdue win. Whittaker is going to be amazing and of course she deserves the same pay as Capaldi. Hopefully, though, this will be just one case in a larger trend.