Although she’s mindful of the roles she plays and how her characters are perceived by young women, it turns out Shailene Woodley doesn't actually consider herself a feminist.
Generally considered to mean basic equality between the sexes, the word the word feminism has become less synonymous with the clichéd image of angry, man-hating women and more about issues of quality, from salaries to education and beyond.
Shailene Woodley though, seemingly doesn’t define this basic issue of equality among the sexes as feminism? At least we hope so, based on this interview with Time.com.
When asked: ‘Do you consider yourself a feminist?’ Shailene responded: ‘No because I love men, and I think the idea of ‘raise women to power, take the men away from the power’ is never going to work out because you need balance.’
We’re giving her a break here because it seems she is defining feminism as some sort of mission to ‘take down’ men, which of course is not the modern definition. At all.
‘With myself, I’m very in touch with my masculine side. And I’m 50 percent feminine and 50 percent masculine, same as I think a lot of us are. And I think that is important to note. And also I think that if men went down and women rose to power, that wouldn’t work either. We have to have a fine balance,’ Woodley concluded.
Shailene definitely is a girl’s girl, though, and really just wants us all to get along. ‘My biggest thing is really sisterhood more than feminism. I don’t know how we as women expect men to respect us because we don’t even seem to respect each other. There’s so much jealousy, so much comparison and envy. And “This girl did this to me and that girl did that to me.” And it’s just so silly and heartbreaking in a way.’
She cites the current release The Other Woman as a good example of sisterhood in a movie, even though it is technically about bringing down a man: ‘I think it’s really neat that it shows women coming together and supporting each other and creating a sisterhood of support for one another versus hating each other for something that somebody else created.’
When it’s mentioned that the ladies are banding together to bring down a man, she answers: ‘Yeah, but they create a sisterhood. And he did something wrong, and they’re, you know. They’re going to go after him for it. I think it’s great.’
Basically, it looks like Shailene’s definition of feminism needs updating. She is a feminist, she just doesn’t label it as that. Are we right?
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.