--- description: Viola Davis is one of five female cover stars featured in ELLE's 6th annual Women in TV issue. title: Viola Davis: 'We've Been Fed a Whole Slew of Lies About Women' image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Viola Davis: 'We've Been Fed a Whole Slew of Lies About Women'  by [Megan McCluskey](/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Staff Writer Jan 12, 2016 10:22 PM CUT  by [Megan McCluskey](/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Staff Writer Jan 12, 2016 10:22 PM CUT Viola Davis is one of five [female cover stars](http://time.com/4150462/pop-culture-women-moments-2015/ "undefined") featured in [ELLE’s 6th annual Women in TV issue](http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/q-and-a/g27531/elle-women-in-tv-2016/ "undefined"), and the 50-year-old Emmy-Winning actress gave some insight into her thoughts on the misrepresentation of females on the small screen. “We’ve been fed a whole slew of lies about women,” said Davis, the star of Shonda Rhimes’s _How to Get Away with Murder_. “\[By television standards,\] if you are anywhere above a size 2, you’re not having sex. You don’t have sexual thoughts. You may not even have a vagina. And if you’re of a certain age, you’re off the table.” > [](https://twitter.com/ELLEmagazine/status/687016246756392960) **Read More:** [Viola Davis: ‘I’ve Never Determined My Value Based on My Looks’](http://time.com/4136365/viola-davis-instyle-cover-value-not-based-on-looks/ "undefined") The other four leading ladies highlighted in the issue are Priyanka Chopra of _Quantico_, [Taraji P. Henson](http://time.com/4140391/taraji-p-henson-empire-hollywood-race/ "undefined") of _Empire_, Julia Louis-Dreyfus of _Veep_ and Olivia Wilde of the upcoming _Vinyl_, who each spoke about a different struggle of being a woman in Hollywood. Louis-Dreyfus explained why many actresses have turned to television over movies as of late. “Go to the movies — how many good scripts are you really seeing out there? How many good, meaty roles are there for women within those scripts? Not tons of them,” she said. “Right now there are so many \[TV\] shows on with strong, complicated, powerful, not-so-powerful, interesting human beings who are women. And I am thrilledto be playing one of them.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4177942/viola-davis-elle-2016-women-in-tv/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4177942/viola-davis-elle-2016-women-in-tv/"},"headline":"Viola Davis: 'We've Been Fed a Whole Slew of Lies About Women'","datePublished":"2016-01-12T22:22:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:28:41.209Z","description":"The actress is featured in ELLE's 2016 Women in TV issue","url":"https://time.com/4177942/viola-davis-elle-2016-women-in-tv/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","TV","sexism","sexuality","Viola Davis"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"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-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4177942/viola-davis-elle-2016-women-in-tv/","name":"Viola Davis: 'We've Been Fed a Whole Slew of Lies About Women'"}}]}] ```