--- title: Jen Garner on Sexism in Hollywood description: "The men in Hollywood event is every day—it’s called Hollywood," says the actress canonical: https://time.com/3529650/jen-garner-elle-work-life-balance-ben-affleck/ author: Belinda Luscombe article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-21T21:27:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:26.523Z og:title: Jen Garner on Sexism in Hollywood og:description: "The men in Hollywood event is every day—it’s called Hollywood," says the actress og:url: https://time.com/3529650/jen-garner-elle-work-life-balance-ben-affleck/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Jen Garner on Sexism in Hollywood twitter:description: "The men in Hollywood event is every day—it’s called Hollywood," says the actress twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Jen Garner Has Your Work-life Balance Right Here > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Each week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published weekly. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=3f3afad5-3ac0-43b1-b83f-d2649e6b15ef&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Jennifer Garner's Plan For Giving Her Kids 'The Talk' [Watch (HLS stream): Jennifer Garner's Plan For Giving Her Kids 'The Talk'](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/L0ES23cH.m3u8) (2:19)  _Published 2014-10-08. Actress and mother Jennifer Garner explains her plan for having 'The Talk' with her children when the time is right_  by [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Editor at Large Oct 21, 2014 9:27 PM UTC  by [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Editor at Large Oct 21, 2014 9:27 PM UTC Jennifer Garner, who’s starting to flex her political muscles a bit more in her work with Save the Children, is also speaking out about that old bugbear, sexism in Hollywood. “The fact that there even needs to be a Women in Hollywood event is a little bit sad,” Garner said at Elle magazine’s Women in Hollywood celebration.. “I mean, the men in Hollywood event is every day—it’s called Hollywood. Fifty-one percent of the population should not have to have to schedule a special event to celebrate the fact that in an art that tells the story of what it means to be human and alive, we get to play a part.” Garner, who recently sat down with Time to talk about her movie _Men, Women & Children_, in which she plays an overprotective mom, likes being known for her parenting skills. When told that she is known on the internet as “America’s most relatable celebrity mom,” she said she had no problem with that. “That’s great with me. I really appreciate that, internet,” she joked. But at the Women in Hollywood event, Garner pointed out that she and her husband Ben Affleck get treated very differently. “My husband and I do kind of the same job, a little bit. Not long ago we both had one of those magical days, we call it a junket, where we both attended these lovely events where people come in every four minutes, they ask the same questions over and over again.” When they got home, the couple compared notes. “ I told him every single person who interviewed me, I mean every single one, and this is true of the red carpet here tonight _Elle_, asked me, ‘How do you balance work and family?’ and he said the only thing that people asked him repeatedly was about the tits on \[his _Gone Girl_ co-star Emily Ratajkowski\], which, for the record if we’re talking about them, they are real and they are fabulous. Take a look and enjoy.” Also for the record, at Time’s interview, we didn’t ask her about work life balance. We asked her about sex ed instead. See the video below. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] I'm very disciplined when I need to be. But I'm also a total flake. A room mom in kindergarten this year. And I'm in charge of this kindergarten coffee next week and I forgot to write down what everyone was supposed to bring. And so I was supposed to send out the e- mail saying okay this is what was decided da da da you bring this. I have bagels. You bring this [ UNKNOWN ]. And I just forgot to write it down, and I just said to them, this is why I'm a better worker bee than I am being in charge. But, I'm a total flake. I cannot tell you how many days i think that i've tried my hardest, as a parent, and really gone out of my way and gone above and beyond and done everything i possibly think I can do to help my child through. X, Y, or Z, only to realise that I was making it harder for them or was in the way or was the problem itself. My mom, she checks my Facebook, my emails, my texts. She must have just deleted it before I even saw it. I know that I like rules. I'll watch how strict the other moms are and I'll probably try to be one notch more strict. [ LAUGH ] I've given a lot of thought to how you deal with teaching your kids, especially your daughters, about sex. The scary thing to me is that, that what's available to them online, even if that they could run across accidentally ,. Could show them something that is so not connected to the way I want them to see sex. I want them to see sex as a, something joyful, as a gift, as a celebration of love and of their bodies, and, I've never thought about that before but it makes me feel really cool and hippie- ish to even [ MUSIC ] Think of it that way. I have nothing figured out yet about how I will manage my children's, entry into the digital world. I just know that it's not yet. I know that I'd rather them try and fail at things while they're under my. Roof and with me there to chat with at bedtime then to say you can do nothing ever until you're an adult and then good luck. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3529650/jen-garner-elle-work-life-balance-ben-affleck/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3529650/jen-garner-elle-work-life-balance-ben-affleck/"},"headline":"Jen Garner Has Your Work-life Balance Right Here","datePublished":"2014-10-21T21:27:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:02:26.523Z","description":"\"The men in Hollywood event is every day—it’s called Hollywood,\" says the actress","url":"https://time.com/3529650/jen-garner-elle-work-life-balance-ben-affleck/","keywords":["Living","Ben Affleck","Jennifer garner","work life balance","working moms"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Belinda Luscombe","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3529650/jen-garner-elle-work-life-balance-ben-affleck/","name":"Jen Garner Has Your Work-life Balance Right Here"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Jennifer Garner's Plan For Giving Her Kids 'The Talk'","description":"Actress and mother Jennifer Garner explains her plan for having 'The Talk' with her children when the time is right","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/L0ES23cH/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-10-08T21:41:12.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/L0ES23cH.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3529650/jen-garner-elle-work-life-balance-ben-affleck/","duration":"PT2M19S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3529650/jen-garner-elle-work-life-balance-ben-affleck/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```