The actress Melissa McCarthy gave a perfect lesson in how to call out sexist criticism this week.

Appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she discussed an infamous review of her 2014 filmTammy in which a critic seemed to tie her acting ability to her physical appearance.

“He’d said basically I’m only a good actress when I look attractive and that my husband [Tammydirector Ben Falcone] shouldn’t be allowed to direct me because he let me be, to look hideous in this movie,” McCarthy said. “It was a lot of things and kind of, how dare women not look beautiful, attractive and perfect in a movie?”

The reviewer was bold enough to introduce himself to McCarthy at a film festival last year, and the actress promptly asked him to consider his role in not only perpetuating double standards in Hollywood, but also what those messages do to young girls.”I said, ‘Do you ever say that to a man?’

“I said, ‘Do you ever say that to a man?”

”He goes, ‘Well, you really looked bad.”

Then McCarthy brought it home.

“Do you have children?” she asked. “I hope you don’t have a daughter. I didn’t mean that in a mean way, and I said… If she comes home and someone says, ‘You can’t have a job because you’re unattractive,’ are you going to say, ‘That’s right’?… He was like, ‘I would never in a million years want that to happen.'”

The Spy actress left with him a profound parting message: “‘Just know every time you write stuff, every young girl in this country reads that and they just get a little bit chipped away,'” she said.

“I just think we tear down women in this country for all of these superficial reasons and women are so great and strong.”

McCarthy discussed the incident in an interview with Entertainment Weekly and shared her thoughts on sexism in Hollywood.

“It’s an intense sickness,” she said. “For someone who has two daughters, I’m wildly aware of how deep that rabbit hole goes. But I just don’t want to start listening to that stuff.

I’m trying to take away the double standard of ‘You’re an unattractive bitch because your character was not skipping along in high heels.’”

I’m trying to take away the double standard of ‘You’re an unattractive bitch because your character was not skipping along in high heels.’”

McCarthy is the latest actress to speak out about about sexism and the representation of women in entertainment.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, 37, told TheWrap that she wasn’t considered as a love interest for a 55-year-old actor because of her age.

“It was astonishing to me,” she said. “It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh.”

At the Cannes Film Festival, Charlize Theron called Mad Max: Fury Road an “incredible feminist movie” with portrayals of “complex and interesting women”; Salma Hayek joined other actresses on a panel about gender equality in the film industry; and Emily Blunt criticized the controversial policy that women at the festival must wear heels on the red carpet.

Meanwhile, Blunt may not have gotten the role of an FBI agent in her forthcoming film Sicario, according to Vanity Fair, if the screenwriter had succumbed to demands to make the lead character a man.

Oh, Hollywood, will you ever learn?

(Via Mashable)