Shailene Woodley Can Stand For Women's Rights While Not Being A Feminist, But Does She?
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Teen Vogue describes actress Shailene Woodley as one of Hollywood’s few ‘earnest’ young actresses. She’s a Hollywood rebel but not a deliberate one, writes TV.
Woodley is pictured here, styled by Barbara Baumel for Elle US April 2015, lensed by Michael Thompson.
Of course, I’m sad that — unlike Beyoncé and Emma Watson — Shailene Woodley rejects the term ‘feminism’ at a time when women’s rights are under assault worldwide. Woodley says she chooses to not define herself with labels, and this is a position I can respect.
At the same time, I’m exhausted with folks who work for equal rights for the world’s women — me for one — getting a bad rap for being’ divisive’. Anyone who reads AOC knows that I actually consider myself a ‘man’s woman’ and a great friend to men. Yet I work unrelentingly to help women everywhere, while fully embracing the term ‘feminist’. The word signifies nothing more than a person who believes in equal rights for women, and only feminism’s fringe has made it divisive.
As an anonymous member of the Kappa Delta Rho fraternity told Philadelphia Magazine last night, ‘Men Will Be Men’. He told us all to stop being sanctimonious and get real. Men have done stupid things and had their way with women for thousands of years, said the frat guy.
On the one hand, posting naked photos of unconscious or sleeping nude women on private fraternity pages isn’t at all the ‘crime’ outlined in the new documentary ‘India’s Daughter’ about the prevalence of rape in India and why women deserve it. And yet, there is a duality between the two actions that is cemented in a pervasive, global male entitlement over women’s bodies… and their wages … and their identities as ‘good women’.
Rather than jump on Shailene Woodley words and make headlines of her comments to Elle Magazine that she’s not a ‘feminist’, I want to learn more about her — what are her actions.
Does she do anything to help women, or is the plight of the world’s women and children just not on her radar. Her actions will determine what I say next on this exploding topic of whether a young woman in any country considers herself to be a ‘feminist’. This seems to be the new interview question — which just may be divisive in itself.
American women, in particularly have been notoriously absent from international actions for poor women. We have gotten better since 2009, when we were conspicuously absent from the issue except for then Secretary of State Clinton’s total change out of State Department policies on the plight of women globally.
In the coming months we will be tracking this issue with our original focus on Smart Sensuality women: sexy, smart and with great heart. And we will have two lists of women — those who live with a feminist mindset and who don’t, with both lists inspired more by actions than labels. ~ Anne
