By Alexa Gonzales
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

When accepting the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role last night at the Oscars, Patricia Arquette made a powerful call for equal rights for women.

Arquette began her acceptance speech in a typical way by addressing her fellow nominees and thanking the cast, crew, and director of “Boyhood.” However, she ended her speech with a rousing statement for feminism:

“To every woman who gave birth to every tax payer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

Patricia Arquette accepts her Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and makes powerful remarks supporting wage equality. Photocredit: The New Yorker

The cameras then cut to the applauding crowd, which included Meryl Streep in the front row enthusiastically cheering for Arquette alongside Jennifer Lopez.

In the Oscars press room, Arquette continued to address the issue of gender equality. “It’s time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now,” she said.

However, Arquette’s comments from the press room received lots of backlash on social media. Many felt that Arquette was trivializing the rights of the LGBTQ community and people of color.

Because of her later comments, Arquette’s well-meaning call for equal rights in her Oscar speech has been met with lots of criticism, but that hasn’t stopped Arquette from speaking out on the issue and defending her remarks.

This afternoon she tweeted, “I have long been an advocate for the rights of the #LBGT community. The question is why aren’t you an advocate for equality for ALL women?”

Despite the criticism, the heart of Arquette’s message cannot be dismissed: “It’s time for women. Equal means equal. The truth is the older women get, the less money they make.”