Hollywood’s Leading Ladies Turned Out to Support Women and Their Right to Desire

A starry crowd of actors/advocates for women’s rights turned out in Los Angeles last week for a dinner hosted by Rumer Willis honoring entrepreneur Cindy Eckert—creator of the “female Viagra” drug Addyi and founder of investment fund the Pink Ceiling, which invests in and advises companies aimed at women’s sexual health.

Guests including Rosanna Arquette; Kelly Lynch; Kathy Hilton and daughters Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton Rothschild; and Tallulah Willis gathered at the Sunset Tower Hotel and sipped on Veuve Clicquot while donning Lingua Franca cashmere sweaters (it was a chilly night in the Hollywood Hills) emblazoned with the call to action and sharing stories on topics ranging from sexual desire to menopause.

“It is an honor to partner with Cindy to raise awareness for women’s sexual health and education,” said Rumer Willis as the assembled crowd sat down to a poolside meal. “I have been blown away by Cindy ever since I met her, and my goal is to continue opening up the lines of communication between women of all ages, sexual orientations, and backgrounds so we can unite and move the conversation about our health and right to desire forward.”

While the guests dined on the hotel’s famous chicken paillard, Eckert took to the floor dressed in her signature hot pink to speak about the challenges she faced bringing Addyi to market. Despite the fact that there were 26 drugs approved to treat sexual dysfunction for men and none for women, Addyi was rejected twice by the FDA, and Eckert said she was forced to jump through multiple hoops, leading to charges of gender bias from the medical community. She also talked about some of the innovations she is currently developing, including a flushable pregnancy test, a device that helps train pelvic-floor muscles, and a decal that can instantly test for a date-rape drug in a cocktail, eliciting whoops of support from Paris Hilton, Arquette, and Lynch.

Lynch, who is involved in a number of organizations championing women’s health care after a car accident left her with a debilitating brain injury when she was just 20 years old, said, “My experience in the hospital was that I was not taken seriously and I had to advocate for myself. We are the majority of the population, and we are not listened to and dealt with in the same way that men are, even down to medical studies. Cindy is so inspiring, and my mission is to introduce her to as many women as possible and see what we can get going here.” The sentiment was shared by the table as they closed out the evening with a pink champagne toast.