"Great commercial!"
Watching the images on the television screen, Ms. Tracy nodded in satisfaction.
Her satisfaction came from two aspects. First, the only two characters to appear in this series of commercials—the two female leads—were both women.
This fit the core of the Feminism Movement perfectly: women could do everything men could do, and do it better.
In earlier television commercials, the central actors had always been men. Women had begun appearing as well, but they were still fewer in number and played less important roles than men.
This was perfectly normal. The Feminism Movement had been around for so long, yet the highest salary a top male actor in Lardimore could receive had already risen to four hundred thousand, while female stars could get no more than three hundred thousand.
Women's rights organizations had protested before, arguing that this was a discriminatory pay scale and unfair to female actors.
Two female stars who were passionate about various causes had also joined the movement. In front of the media, they had called on Lardimore's Production Companies to give women equal standing with men in terms of compensation as soon as possible.
Those two female stars had not made a single film since then. Even adult-film companies refused to hire them. The two had completely lost their value—and their futures.
Under those circumstances, Lardimore's female stars were even less likely to stand with the Feminism Movement. In the end, the movement gradually faded away, and no one ever mentioned it again.
Still, the movement had not been entirely without benefits. At the very least, when Production Companies and investors chose scripts, they would consider adding more female characters to cater to the viewing needs of some "steel women."
The female audience market was also enormous, and their needs had to be