A panel featuring Meghan the Duchess of Sussex came together on International Women's Day to discuss how women and mothers are portrayed in traditional media and across social media, among other issues.
The panel was part of the annual SXSW (South by Southwest) being held through March 16 in Austin, Texas, and also included actor, model and author Brooke Shields, journalist Katie Couric and sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen.
SXSW showcases music, film and interactive media.
Meghan — responding to a report on how mothers are portrayed in the media — said the report found that working mothers are paid 62 cents to the dollar to what working fathers are paid.
The report was funded by the Archewell Foundation, a non-profit created by Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
"There's a lot of work to be done in supporting women and moms," she said. "It's almost feeling punitive at a certain point when you're a mom and you're juggling so much and caring so much and you want to be supported in the best way possible."
Yuen added that policymakers — not working mothers — are determining policy that affects women and moms.
"We know that if they're not actually having contact with folks. They're deriving their ideas from television, from film, just subconsciously," she said. "You know that's not real, but that's what you're seeing. You're seeing 'Oh hey, everything's great. Working moms, they're just mostly at home, and men are the breadwinners.'"
"When women's rights advance, that advances society," Yuen added. "When women are working and getting equal share, they're making money. They're actually contributing to the economy."
The panel also discussed the sometimes negative effect social media is having on women and girls.
Meghan said she experienced online "bullying and abuse" when pregnant with her two children and immediately after they were born.
"I keep my distance from it right now just for my own well-being," she said. "You really wrap your head around why people would be so hateful. It's not catty. It's cruel."
The issue of women being treated differently from men as they age also was discussed by Couric and Shields. Shields, 58, said Hollywood doesn't "know what to do with" women actors as they get older.
"At 58, you're too old to be the ingenue, but you're not quite the granny yet," she said. "Find and ferret out the filmmakers who appreciate a woman over 40 … appreciate the life experience, the 'we've raised the children, we've had the families, we've had businesses, we've had professional lives, we've left them, we've gone back to them.' "
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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