Kristen Stewart's Fury: Why Hollywood Still Silences Women Filmmakers

"In a post-MeToo moment, it seemed possible that stories made by and for women were finally getting their due, that we might be allowed or even encouraged to express ourselves and our shared experiences, all of our experiences without filter," she said after being introduced by Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor, adding, "But I can now attest to the bare-knuckle brawling that it takes every step of the way when the content is too dark, too taboo, when the frankness with which it serves up observations about experiences routinely experienced by women, frequently provokes disgust and rejection."

According to Variety, she argued that these experiences are authentic and deserve to be told with authenticity.

Stewart added, "I am in a severe state of PMS today...But I relish being able to say that my nerves are close to the surface of my skin, and it is a great day for that."

She went on to say, "We can discuss wage gaps and taxes on tampons and measure [inequality] in lots of quantifiable ways, but the violence of silencing, it's like we're not even supposed to be angry. But I can eat this podium with a fork and fucking knife. I'm so angry."

Stewart said, "The backsliding from a brief moment of progress is statistically devastating. It is devastating. Such a pitiful number of films from the past year have been made by women. We obviously need many more women's luncheons in our lives. We need to become ladies who lunch all the fucking time," according to Variety.

She continued, "There are too few of us. We're all here together now, and it seems like there's a lot, Jesus Christ, there's not. It's not our fault. Sure, our business is in a state of emergency, man, and you know the last thing that I wanna do here is lose the celebration under a pile of pissed off rubble. We are allowed to be proud of ourselves and maybe to allow each other to reclaim the gratitude we've all become talented at performing and really taste it from the inside out."

Stewart received loud applause in her seven-minute speech.

"I am thankful to you," she said. "I am not grateful to a boys' club business model that pretends to want to hang out with us while siphoning our resources and belittling our true perspectives. Let's try not to be tokenised. Let's start printing our own currency," according to Variety.

- ANI