"I'm Not a Feminist," She Says.

She walks like a feminist, talks like a feminist, thinks like a feminist, but if you ask Shailene Woodley she'll tell you she's not one at all. The actress (you might recognize her from The Fault in Our Stars and the Divergent movies) came out against the word in an interview with Time.

When asked if she considered herself a feminist Shailene said,

"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. 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."

This is where we (the feminists) collectively wince. I think most people start off with misconceptions about feminism, especially when we're young, but it's still surprising to run across them in the wild in all their outlandishness. Before we get further I think it'd probably be best to tease apart Shailene's response and to give it some context.

Time didn't ask Shailene about feminism out of the blue. They were actually riffing off an article they'd written about her a few months before. The article (Titled "Why Hollywood Desperately Needs Shailene Woodley.") starts with the line, "The 22-year-old Divergent star turns out to be the outspoken feminist role model we've been waiting for." and talks about how Shailene is a great role model, how we finally have a down-to-earth starlet that teenage girls can look up to. And everything Time talks about in that article is true to fact. In interviews Shailene often stresses sisterhood; how women shouldn't have to feel like they need to fight each other for space. In the Time article about Shailene they quote her about the relationships in Twilight (she thinks their unhealthy), about bras (she's anti-bra), and on her sexuality (Shailene is bi). Time labels Shailene a feminist several times in the article, because the way Shailene acts, and how she seems to perceive the world, is fundamentally feminist.

The first Time article was published on March 18th, 2014; and they interviewed her on May 5th. The reaction was what you would expect. Media outlets picked up the quote and ran stories about Shailene's dislike of the word. On Twitter Shailene's mentions are full of tweets like these:

Looking through Twitter I found less hate then I expected. Most of the responses are, at worst, patronizing. Almost everyone just wants to correct her, and a few do go further. Some suggest she should stop drinking the Kool-Aid, some just tell her she's stupid. Really the entirety of the responses can basically be summarized with this image:

Shailene's reaction to the controversy? She seems surprised that anyone cares, and has since been quoted saying, “I mean, if we spent as much energy focusing on the genocide that’s going on right now in parts of Africa as we spent on that one article, think about what we could accomplish. Change is not going to come from focusing on the small things that actors say.”

It was quickly pointed out that that isn't quite true. A) Talking about feminism does not distract from talking about genocide (and it's kind of ridiculous to compare the two), and B) Change can totally come from talking about the things that actors say. As the first Time article pointed out, Shailene is a role model for girls who are just starting to become aware of the culture in which they exist. They might take Shailene's word on it that feminism equals man hating.

Also, discussion (preferably friendly discussion) is fundamental to growth, and because it's the Internet you can bet that thousands of people are watching and forming opinions based off of the articles, tweets, and essays being written on the subject. Shailene's antifeminism (and the ensuing social media maelstrom) might only affect a few dozen people's opinions, but that isn't to say that it doesn't matter. Change is usually gradual.

Roughly a year later, Shailene seems to have only dug into her opinion. In a recent interview with Nylon she says,

"The reason why I don’t like to say that I am a feminist or I am not a feminist is because to me it’s still a label. I do not want to be defined by one thing. Why do we have to have that label to divide us? We should all be able to embrace one another regardless of our belief system and regardless of the labels that we have put upon ourselves.”

I think the reasons that there has been (relatively) little hate thrown Shailene's way is that most feminists understand where she's coming from. Everyone starts out ignorant and learns as they go along, and most people can see that Shailene just doesn't understand what she's talking about. This talk about "labels" sounds like something I would have said in middle school or high school. With any luck she'll eventually have a better understanding of what feminism actually is, and then maybe we'll see her try to find new ways to talk about labels and gender. It's just unfortunate she has to do that in public.

#fruits