Jameela Jamil is weighing in on award shows having gender-neutral categories and proposes people who identify as non-binary get their own category to not “completely shut out women.”
“Would it not be better to give non-binary people their own category rather than open the door for Hollywood to completely shut out women given the known disproportionate amount of men vs women winning at award shows?” reads a statement Jamil posted on Instagram.
“If we now have enough non-binary talent to restructure entire award shows, which is GREAT, then we should add rather than run the accidental risk of erasing, no? I say this as an audience member because I am not going to be nominated for an Oscar anyway,” she adds. “I have no horse in this race.”
The She-Hulk: Attorney at Law actor clarified in the Instagram caption that her sentiment comes as “the Oscars looking to get rid of gendered acting awards. As we see with the director award which is genderless, it’s rare to even see a woman nominated never mind win…”
She continued, “I want to open more doors and create more tables, not narrow the opportunities for everyone, including GNC [gender non-conforming] people.”
Award shows like the Independent Spirit Awards and the British Independent Film Awards have already shifted to gender-neutral categories, something that MTV has been doing for years in both their VMAs and Film & TV Awards shows.
The Bad Dates podcast host acknowledges that “this disparity exists” and says that she feels “as though we will see a growing ire from women who get shut out of award opportunities because we have created only one spot for a winner amongst 10s of thousands of actors, in a world that favors men.”
“I don’t think it will help women or NB people to minimize the amount of possible winners,” she adds. “We should look to EXPAND the possibilities so that both GNC people and women have a fair shot in an industry that has for a long time struggled to treat others equals to men.”
Read Jamil’s complete Instagram post below.