After telling women women that, when it comes to closing the very real gender wage gap, they simply need to work harder and stop complaining, the Daily Mail has uncovered bankruptcy documents that show Stacey Dash should have taken her own advice — as well as proving the actress and Fox News contributor to be a hypocrite.
Back in 2004, before Stacey Dash made a name for herself on Fox News by making stunningly controversial statements, Dash was unemployed, broke, drowning in massive debt and surviving solely on $6,000-per-month financial support payments from her fiancé, Brit James Maby. In fact, Dash was basically a kept woman for two years, as Maby solely supported her financially.
Dash filed for bankruptcy in May of 2004, claiming a slender $28,582 in assets against an astounding $157,703.53 in liabilities owed to creditors.
Dash did marry Maby, but later divorced him. In fact, Dash has been divorced a total of three times — which did not stop her from laying the blame for the high divorce rates on women. According to Dash, the reason for failed marriage is that women “don’t know how to take care of their men anymore.”
Is anyone else wondering if Dash is trolling the public?
Of course, 11 years passed between the time Dash spent being solely supported by her fiancé and her appearance with Meredith Vieira in which she dismissed the financial struggle that many women face on a daily basis. But her flippant response to the gender wage gap that leaves many women struggling to make ends meet, in light of her own two years of unemployment and her good fortune to have a fiance who was willing to support her financially with a monthly allowance of $6,000 a month does seem to be a moment of stunning hypocrisy.
“It’s an excuse. Stop making excuses,” she said on the Meredith Vieira Show in 2015, in regards to the gender wage gap. “If there are opportunities, seize them. And be prepared for them. And be the best, if that’s what it takes. If you have to be extraordinary, be extraordinary.”
Of course, it helps if, when you are struggling to be extraordinary, you have a fiancé willing and able to cough up $6,000 a month in order to support you.
When Vieira told the Clueless actress that women make 70 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts, Dash shrugged it off, dismissing it with saying, “I don’t know if that’s true.” To note, in 2015, female full-time workers made only 79 cents for every dollar earned by men, which means there is an actual, verified gender wage gap of 21 percent. Women, on average, earn less than men in virtually every single occupation for which there is sufficient earnings data for both men and women to calculate an earnings ratio, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research .
Dash did admit that she knows that the numbers are true, but added, “I feel like your daughter will be able to make as much money as she wants in her life. Just like you are. I mean, look at you.”
So, in effect, Dash knows that women do make less than men, but rather than viewing it as a problem of gender inequality, Dash sees it as a problem with women who have simply not worked hard enough.
Vieira then told Stacey Dash about her own personal history, dealing with male counterparts who were making more than she was, but again, Dash dismissed it.
“I guess I won’t put my fate into anything other than my own action and taking my destiny in my hands. I will not play victim to anything.”
It’s pretty easy to not play the victim when receiving a huge monthly stipend from a man. Of course, if Dash had been a man herself, perhaps her $6,000 monthly allotment would have been 21 percent more.
[Photo by Paul Archuleta/Getty Images]