Shailene Woodley and Feminism

TIME magazine recently interviewed Shailene Woodley, a 22 year old actress starring in the already released film Divergent and the upcoming The Fault in Our Stars. Yesterday, they posted an article entitled, "Shailene Woodley on Why She's Not a Feminist." As TIME points out, it's "one of the hottest topics in Hollywood lately," which is why they devoted a whole piece to it. Big star meets big trend and the end result is pageviews and ad revenue.

Honestly, I was surprised by Woodley's answer. Summary: she loves men and prefers the idea of sisterhood. I thought it was common knowledge that feminism isn't the same as hating men. Firstly, there's Beyonce. Her fifth album, released December last year, has multiple feminist songs and even handily includes a definition in Flawless***. Even before then, in September 2013, Glamour magazine did an interview with Anna Holmes, founding editor of Jezebel, on how the 'F-word' has returned. It isn't the only mainstream women's magazine to address misconceptions and present a positive view of the word feminist. Outside of magazines there's the bestselling "How to be a Woman" by Caitlin Moran and the Everyday Sexism project.

Normally, I would be exasperated by a celebrity who gave an answer similar to Woodley's. This time I'm not for the unfair reason that I like her. She seems like a friendly hippie who is dedicated to her job. Plus in her soon to be released film, an adaptation of a book I love, she plays the main character to high praise from its author.  Ultimately, I wish that Woodley had answered yes. We have come so far that it's easy to think that we're done. (I'm talking about the UK and the USA here.) But we're not. There's still the pay gap and the lack of women in politics and a whole stack of problems women face just for being women. Feminism is about changing that. (There are various ideas within feminism on what counts as inequality, why it exists and how to address it, but the main point stays the same.)

Woodley's comments make it clear that (despite Beyonce etc.) it's still fairly common to think men and women have the same inherent worth, but edge away from the word "feminist." It often comes along with the sentiment that since women have more rights now equality has been achieved. Labelling yourself a feminist means actively announcing that you think this isn't the case. Hopefully, this prompts other people to explore the reasons why. By saying that you aren't a feminist, because you "love men" the word feminism is unfairly tainted. That keeps people away from projects helping women, because they rightfully use words like feminism, sexism and patriarchy.