Patricia Arquette Calls For Wage Equality in Moving Oscar Speech

Looks like Boyhood star Ellar Coltrane has two reasons to be proud of his onscreen mother, Patricia Arquette. For starters, the 46-year-old won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her moving 12-years-in-the-making performance as a single mother trying to do right by her two kids. But the actress also earned some of the loudest applause of the night when she used her moment in the spotlight to call attention to a crucial issue: Equal pay and equal rights for women. You can watch her speech in the clip above.

Reading from prepared statements that kicked off with messages of thanks to both her Boyhood family and her real family, Arquette built to a rousing crescendo in her speech’s closing moments. “To every woman that gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else's equal rights,” she said. “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

Those words got everyone in the crowd fired up — especially in a year where the lack of female nominees in major categories like Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay has been much commented upon — and no one more so than Meryl Streep, who proved that she deserves the statue for Best Fist Pump at the Oscar after-party.

Streep's seatmate, Jennifer Lopez, had her hand up in the air as well, which makes us think there's an awesome buddy comedy about female empowerment just waiting to be made starring the two of them.