The actor Jennifer Garner has voiced her frustration at the sexism she experiences in Hollywood, and from the media.

Addressing the Elle Women in Hollywood event earlier this week, she said that it was “a little bit sad” that such an event even had to exist. “The ‘men in Hollywood’ event is every day - it’s called Hollywood. Fifty-one per cent of the population should not 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.”

She shared a story of when she and her husband, Ben Affleck, spent a day on respective press junkets. “We got home at night and we compared notes. And I told him every single person who interviewed me, I mean every single one... 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 the Blurred Lines girl [Emily Ratajkowski, Affleck’s co-star in Gone Girl].

“As for work-life balance, he said no one asked him about it that day. As a matter of fact, no one had ever asked him about it. And we do share the same family. Isn’t it time to kinda change that conversation?”

It’s not the first time she’s voiced strong opinions on the ills of the film industry: last year she backed Halle Berry’s call for legislation to protect children from paparazzi, which eventually became California law.

Garner is currently appearing in family comedy Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and also stars in Men, Women and Children, the new film from Jason Reitman which explores sex and relationships in the age of social networking. Next year she appears in Danny Collins, starring Al Pacino as a washed-up pop star.