For a few years, Shailene Woodley said a lot of dumb sh-t about feminism. In 2014-15, there was a treasury of stupid quotes from Woodley about how feminism “discriminates” against men, and how feminism is a label that divides us, and she didn’t identify as a feminist because she’s “very in touch with my masculine side.” As I said, she has said a lot of dumb sh-t. Shailene has a new interview with the New York Times, and as it turns out, the little granola-cruncher has some new-fangled ideas about feminism and the need for a matriarchal society. Sure thing. Some highlights from the NYT:
She might run for public office: “There was a point last year when I was working for Bernie Sanders where I thought, ‘Huh, maybe I’ll run for Congress in a couple years.’ And you know what? I’m not going to rule it out. Who knows? Life is big, and I’m young.”
On the need for empathy towards abusers & bullies: “A bully generally is not bullying just to bully. They’re bullying out of pain and internal conflict and brokenness. Obviously there is no complacency on my end for any act of violence. But it’s worth looking at why we have so many rapes and acts of sexual violence. Many young men and women feel out of control or that they don’t have support for the traumas they’re experiencing, and I think paying attention to that and providing support would create a world where we have less acts of violence.”
On her newfound feminism: “I would today consider myself a feminist. If females start working through the false narrative of jealousy and insecurity fed through a patriarchal society, then not only will we have more women feeling confident in themselves and supportive of one another, but we will start introducing a type of matriarchy, which is what this world needs. We need more softness and more silence and more pause through the chaos.”
If she wants to call herself a feminist now, God bless and Godspeed. But I’ll nitpick about this all f–king day: “If females start working through the false narrative of jealousy and insecurity fed through a patriarchal society…” That comes right after she identifies as a feminist. Literally her next sentence is about “females” (UGH) and what FEMALES need to change to become, like, more feminist. How about Feminist-Come-Lately Shailene sits down and actually listens to other “females” for a second before she perpetuates misogynistic tropes about female jealousy and insecurity? The problem isn’t that women aren’t doing enough to work through patriarchy to create a matriarchy – it’s that we’re being suffocated, beaten, maligned, denigrated and murdered for merely wanting equality, not matriarchy.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I can’t stand her. She acts like she is the first person to have an idea and wants to take credit for the hard work others have been doing for years.
She always sounds like she is spewing whatever buzzwords she just read in Vanity Fair.
For all her faux-hippie-crunchy-granola nonsense, she speaks like a bleached blonde spray-tanned trophy wife waiting for her Spin/Pilates Fusion class to start, parroting nonsense she read on goop. “Oh my god, you guys, do you know about yoni eggs?”
GiBee, this!
Guys feminism is not that hard to get.
OMG – +1,000,000,000
Every time I read about a celebrity ‘discovering’ feminism, or miserably failing at its definition, I feel like pulling my hair out.
Feminist questionnaire:
Do you believe that women are equal to men? Do you believe that women should have the exact same rights/privileges/pay as men? Do you believe that issues that specifically pertain to women need the same attention as men’s issues? Do you understand that you do not need to burn your bra nor hate men in order to be a feminist? Yes? Guess what! You’re a feminist.
Exactly. Its so obvious how easy feminism is
I agree and I don’t, if that makes sense? I think the basics are really easy, but the practice is hard. I mean, otherwise intersectionality wouldn’t be an issue at all.
I’m so tired of these privileged celebrities using social movements as trendy buzzwords for their own benefit. It’s so transparent & disingenuous.
It never fails, all the white Hollywood feminists who are “brave enough to speak out” have one a dimensional & basic understanding of what feminism is.
They don’t care about real issues & how they affect every day women, particularly those in underprivileged areas. Where’s the advocacy for Sandra Bland or do the useless think pieces & outrage stop at Lena Dunhams quasi-progressivism
I fully agree but I also think its only going to get worse.
I mean its also kind of funny to talk about equality while sitting in your mansion in your designer clothes you got for free and pointing fingers at other people.
Have you read We Were Feminists Once by Andi Zeisler? I mention this because It makes similar points to what you’re making now.
It is a good book. Her site has interesting articles and discusses intersectional feminism quite often. I follow her on Twitter and she is hilarious.
As I, too, went through a very ignorant mindset towards feminism, will not say things in a condescending way. However, she’s miles away from ‘wokeness’ when it comes to women’s rights, hell, even how to talk to women in a respectful, humane way, so I hope she studies before she says anything new about it.
It literally requires 20seconds to look up Feminism in the dictionary. So IMO if people don’t know what it means, they are either illiterate or following the anti-female cool crowd.
Ugh did she just equate women with softness and silence?
I think she meant it was more of how women react to things—we tend to take in events, process and think about them quietly to ourselves, formulate an opinion based on all that we know, and then open our mouths to say what we think without acting like an idiot or buffoon. A lot of men, well…they do the opposite! They shout out opinions first, and then think it through later. Not to say women can’t act like brash morons and men can’t be well spoken and thoughtful, of course…this is a generality.
Yeah, that rubbed me the wrong way too. It sounds like what she learned of womanhood came from “that’s what little girls are made of”.
she did. and it’s total bull.the stand : woman are like this and men are like that is just…..50 years ago. I’m brash and outspoken and loud, and I often speak before I think. Guess I’m not a woman, then.
Eh, she isn’t wrong. I run a successful business with a partner and i constantly have to remind her that another woman’s success in no way diminishes ours. We should be more supportive of eachother. The world wants to tear us down and keep us humble, we should encourage one another more
Isnt that more of a capitalist thing? Its not like men are totally cool with each other in the work place. Capitalism makes you see your co workers as competition and turns all of that into your self worth. You can only be at the top and you are a loser if you are unemployed. Also a very narrow view of what constitutes success. And only a few can reach that so in a capitalic logic your success DOES get diminished by someone achieving more.
With the current neoliberal version of mainstream feminism all of this wont change. There will just be more women who exploit others.
Amen. All this “Lean In” nonsense that blames women for not succeeding because they don’t try hard enough is just phony feminism that is at its essence capitalism. And why should we applaud women who rise to the top of the corporate or political hierarchy if they do nothing to help women still on the ground floor? All those hundred-dollar “Feminism” t-shirts….how much are the women who make them earn?
I really recommend “Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto” by Jessa Crispin for a great examination of phony feminism.
I totally agree, QueenB. Workplace competition is a product of capitalism, not gender.
Her comments about why there is sexual assault and rape are so off base. This girl seems to think she knows what she is talking about without having done by research into these areas. People do not rape because they are in pain or trauma. This makes me grind my teeth in frustration.
She’s young and earnestly trying to work through these complex ideas, so I’m trying to give her credit for that. She for sure would have been a flower child in the 60s. She obviously has a point about patriarchal narratives of insecurity and jealousy and the way they seek to divide women, but the way she tries to conflate bullying with rape is maddening. Sure, there is something “broken” and “conflicted” about rapists, I guess, but rape is fundamentally about power and cruelty and, as we have seen in the news of late, entitlement. I get she’s trying to get at the problem of gender divisions, though she ends up only reinforcing them with her “female softness” comments. And she’s a typical Bernie supporter in her omission of any discussion of race. Maybe she should take some gender studies and race relations classes at UCLA before opining to the media on this subject.
I agree but why do we have to witness her growing up? Aren’t there more interesting people to interview? Why is this girl given so much room to share her intellectual journey? Can we hear from someone with more experience and a fully formed personality etc.? Or someone with a different perspective than “young, white, successful, privileged”?
There is no shortage of interesting perspectives from accomplished and educated people of all walks of life and all races/ethnicities on the internet. But you have to know where to look. Whereas THIS is served on a damn platter. There is a reason this is the narrative. Because I’ve heard from her and others like her about 1000 times.
I completely agree with your point. However, I also agree with tracking’s point about giving her credit for trying to work though the ideas to a certain extent only because some celebrity women aren’t given the benefit of the doubt about this compared to other celebrity women.
She’s 25, not 12.
Ya I’m going to need her to.stop talking. I stopped reading after the bullying part. She is still saying dumb shit.
I stopped reading after the bullying portion as well. I have no sympathy for bullies or for the people that give excuses for them.
She needs to read the article in Elle about Andy Murray’s feminism. Because he gets it, and uses many fewer words to describe it.
Her environmental activism is pretty legit and I don’t ask much more from her
If she can do one thing well and properly, do it instead of having half baked ideas and half hearted activism on a wider range of things.
Research on whether sunning your vag causes brain damage needs to be done but I will give her some credit for trying finally. She’s come a bit of a way from not being a feminist because she doesn’t hate men but she still has a long way to go.
Isn’t she 24. I think she’s still developing and I don’t believe she’s been to college which is where a lot of people really grow intellectually. I won’t gang up on her because she just sounds young.
Actually she seems to be speaking from an Indigenous point of view. We were a matriarchal society prior to colonization women made the decisions which would affect the community as a whole. After her actions at Standing Rock she gets a permanent life pass from me. Perhaps she didn’t feel the need to declare herself feminist she was taught from an early age she was equal…in the Anishinnabe traditional society, women have their roles and quite simply there is need to declare, you are born equal.
As for women unfortunately we tend to be our worst enemies – for stating her point of view she was described as speaking “dumb shit” she talked about equality and the environment with the media while wearing I stand with Standing Rock t-shirt – there are some who only talk..she talked and walked.
Yeah I agree. Not everyone is good at articulating their views. Competitive Feminism is a real problem and can keep women exploring their views from expressing them.
As for Standing Rock, she was impressive for sure.
I find her at once incredibly boring and incredibly off-putting…
Yup… like stale white toast
Oh honey.
She’s still very juvenile in her ideology, and fame doesn’t help that, but she is trying I think.
This whole thing about females need to, its about her. She had to come to terms with the fact that masculine wasn’t best, and she’s projecting that journey on all women. Tons of us started as female chauvanists honey, but tons didn’t. Getting over being the cool girl is a real thing, but not all women need to do that, because its not everyone’s journey.
It sounds like she’s done the pendulum swing. Rwalizing that masculine doesn’t equal best, so swinging towards ‘feminine’, without realizing its the same stupid broken coin, just the other side of it.
+1000 you’re absolutely right – this is her projecting her own internalized misogyny
People need to stop describing women as “females.” It’s distancing language that paints women as a removed subject of scientific curiosity rather than (SHOCKING TWIST!) people and equals.
“Female” can refer to the biological sex of any animal, “woman” exclusively refers to humans.
It’s a huge red flag to me when people call women “females,” as if we’re some alien species. Consciously or unconsciously, it elevates the speaker and puts down the subject.
This isn’t a semantics thing – every time I’ve heard this, the person goes on to make a negative generalization about women or to dictate what “females” should and shouldn’t do. It’s the gender equivalent of “I’m not racist but…” and in this case, a shade of “I’m not like other girls…”
YES, ElleC! I am so with you on the use of the word ‘female’ in that manner.
But male is just as used. I think female is a good word to use when refering to girls and women. English is not my first language so maybe I should not have a opinion however. It’s just makes sense to me.
@Chinoiserie – I explained a bit in my post above. In English, “female” can refer to any animal, but “women” and “girls” refer exclusively to humans. Using “female” to refer to women is common in scientific literature. But at least some native English speakers will find it creepy or inappropriate if you use it in everyday conversation. Some men and women use the term “females” in ways that are offensive. It is very rare that anyone uses “males” in the same way. Even if they did, men might not find it offensive because historically, their gender/sex hasn’t been pathologized in the same way.
TLDR: It doesn’t take much to say “girls” or “women” instead and you won’t risk coming across the wrong way!
I’m just going to leave this here.
http://tomatonation.com/culture-and-criticism/yes-you-are/
Love that. Should be required reading for every young woman who by virtue of her fame gets asked “are you a feminist” only to reply with some inane blather about not hating men and how bullying and rape is all about acting out pain and the world needs more matriarchal softness and silence. Girl, you ain’t down in the trenches where women are still systematically oppressed so go to your dictionary and look up the term feminist instead of making up some ‘faux-tellectual’ word salad that makes sense only to yourself.
“..but we will start introducing a type of matriarchy, which is what this world needs. We need more softness and more silence and more pause through the chaos.”
I guess she’s assuming females will bring more softness and pause? I always find that assumption a little funny. When females get into power, I don’t necessarily think they behave any differently than men (i.e see Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May in terms of lack of empathy).
I’m not against seeing more women in power, mind you. I just don’t think when it comes to power that people of different genders behave differently. Power tends to make all people act the same.
Softness, silence and pause? Softness, Silence and Pause? SOFTNESS, SILENCE AND PAUSE? Sounds like something my mother told me in the 80s. Miss Woodley’s clueless. And barf worthy. Softness, silence and pause. Can’t believe I just read that, and it’s 2017.
It sounds like something a ‘mystic’ says. Or you know, a 1%er who wants to seem deep. Or something from Quiverful. Women should be soft and silence and still, erm sorry, paused.
Once on Survivor a very tanned and hip gentleman told a lovely lady he wanted to connect with her, on a human level. He wore a feather braided immaculately into his hair and meant he wanted to bang. He’d get along great with Shailene I think. They are on the same hippy word salad wavelength.
I see the hippy constructs, but my brain personalizes it which takes me back to a time I wanted to simply scream my ass off. Mother says, “You want them to come to you darling. You must always let them make the first move. Never ever kiss on the first date, and NEVER let them touch your breasts for heaven’s sake.” AAAAGGGGGHHHH. Do we still say, “Children should be seen and not heard?” Frak no. Same thing. You wanna shout? Shout. You wanna be quiet? Be quiet. But don’t you dare make a unilateral statement of what we should, or should not, be doing. So there. lol
Unfortunetly some of the most disgusting patriarch I ve had to deal with ,are women. I wish people would stop confusing roles with sexes.
I actually agree with her on this. Our world is changing and more patriochal societies are moving to the western world. They aren’t bad people but the man runs the show! You allow these men into your politics and watch our women’s rights go it the window. Look at Turkey for an example. We’ve already had those issues in Canada on a very small scale.
…sadly so unbelievably true….
I still believe she has more to learn and hasn’t evolved yet. I don’t agree with all the things she’s saying especially about rape and being soft . On the same breathe I feel we need all the women for this fight. The world is so mysognist towards women. One of their most powerful weapons is to turn us against each other. Divided we cant be successful.
She’s been really good on race issues. I credit her for that. But I saw her being interviewed once for a thing on strong female roles, and whereas Jennifer Lawrence had been fully supportive of Katniss as a strong female role model, Woodley was all, “there are very strong male characters in the movie, too.” Gracious and patronising smile at the interviewer who’d asked if she was proud to be in a movie with so many strong women.
I wonder what world she’s been inhabiting, not to understand that women are oppressed in allied, and similar ways. It’s surreal that she can be so positive on the rights of minorities, and so hopeless on women. I’ve never heard her suggest that the onus should be on everyone but white people, to overcome racism at a systemic and societal level.
Interesting that she’s a white person all about equality and civil rights for all, but also a woman who seems to struggle with the idea women deserve the same.
Take several seats.
her view on feminism and softness is so 70ies view of feminism. like, I was reading a book while in college that in 70ies was considered feminist about Theodora and Justinian where Theodora was described as having made it as a Empress of Eastern Mediterranean through her subtle “womanly wiles”. it was just…mind boggling. this sounds the same: oh, let’s all be soft and kind and feminine and our biggest problem is cattiness and jelaousy towards one another…yeah, no. That sounds exactly how some douche-bro imagines “good feminism”.
These girls have so much time and resources at their hands, why, why, WHY don’t they educate themselves? I just can’t with this stupid s*it anymore! I’m not less feminist if I yell when I’m angry, If I don’t like another woman bc she’s done some stupid things or if I’m not full of earthly understanding towards bullies-and actually, Girl, rapists rape bc they like the power high, in most of the cases. and I’m really not interested how they got there until they’re “destroying”(“” bc I think victims are strong and they don’t let rape destroy them, but it does changes them in a way they wouldn’t choose) other’s people lives. sorry, not sorry.
Man she bungled that one. She doesn’t get it.
Well said Kaiser!!!