Shailene Woodley On Feminism: She’s Not An Anti-Feminist
Earlier in the year, Shailene Woodley unintentionally became a part of the anti-feminist movement discussion due to her comments about feminism, or at least what she thinks feminism is.
She told Time Magazine about her feelings on men. “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. 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.”
She continued, “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.”
After her comments about what she thinks feminism is started a very hot discussion, she told Entertainment Weekly that her comments were misconstrued.
“For me the big thing in life is about sisterhood. Bringing sisters together and supporting one another. The thing I was trying to say we need to eliminate — without the word ‘feminist,’ without any word attached to it — we need to begin to evolve the way we look at sisterhood. It’s the exact opposite of what [the article] ended up doing.”
When asked if she expected or wanted to be a role model for young women, in an interview with the Telegraph, she said, “I feel like, if I lived my life for anyone else, I would be missing a lot of self nourishment, and a lot of self love,” she says. “So I just try to lead a life for myself in the best possible way.”
People still seem to have strong feelings about her previous interview.
Shailene Woodley you clay eating fool you literally said you’re not a feminist and expressed that you’re against feminism
— gal pals! (@yoongEYE) December 7, 2014
White feminists will PRAISE Shailene Woodley, who’s blatantly said she dislikes feminism while trying to destroy Beyoncé. — Khaleesi (@Wjlly) December 6, 2014
i love shailene woodley but her views on feminism are so ignorant it baffles me
— ayyy (@lizaedelstein) December 1, 2014
why is shailene woodley still allowed to talk about feminism when she clearly has not idea what she’s talking about — margh (@marghaery) November 4, 2014
[Image via Summit Entertainment]