Gwyneth Paltrow calls Blake Lively, Reese Witherspoon comparisons "misogynistic"
Gwyneth Paltrow has Goop, Blake Lively has Preserve, Jessica Alba has The Honest Company and Reese Witherspoon recently launched Draper James. But if you ask Paltrow, it's not fair to loop them all together just because they each have lifestyle brands.
In an interview with Time, the actress and businesswoman was unnerved when asked if she ever looks at those other websites, noting she didn't think men's business ventures would be grouped together that same way.
"I wonder if George Clooney would be asked about Puff Daddy's ancillary liquor line," she replied.
"I'm fascinated how the media in particular are so confounded by entrepreneurial women doing something outside of their box. Jessica [Alba], especially, who's a friend of mine -- our businesses could not be more different. There's not a lifestyle piece to her business. The fundamentals of our sites are very different," Paltrow added. "Reese launched -- our businesses have similarities, but hers has retail. People are grasping at straws to tie us together and I get it, because it makes a good story, but I'm slightly offended by this sort of generalization that happens with myself and Jessica and Reese and Blake."
"Yes, there are similarities," said Paltrow, "But there aren't stories in Time written saying, 'Wow, look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, who did x, y, and z!'"
When the interviewer pointed out that launching a lifestyle brand has become more common, and how other actresses have launched theirs in a relatively short span of time, Paltrow reaffirmed her point.
"I feel there's something slightly misogynistic about it," she said of the comparisons. "This is a common theme. I think Reese and Jessica and I -- I don't know Blake Lively, and I don't know if Jessica and Reese know each other -- I'm friends with both of them and I speak to both of them and I want to do everything I can to support their businesses. I'm not articulating it well, because I haven't completely worked out what it is, but I feel very proud when Jessica was on the cover of Forbes. I think that's amazing. You can quantitatively say, 'Look what she's done, she's been able to conceive of a business and scale it to that size, in that amount of time.' But we have such different businesses."
Paltrow launched Goop in 2008, and she is now on hiatus from acting projects while she focuses on the company. "I need to focus on this business," she told Time. "I have a fiscal and moral responsibility to other people."