feminist

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A Year of Anti-Feminism

shailene woodley lana del rey salma hayek kaley cuoco

Stars and starlets in 2014 continued the old Hollywood tradition of denouncing feminism. Equality: who needs it?

Kaley Cuoco made headlines a few days ago when she was the latest in a long series of Hollywood women to weigh in on why they aren’t feminists. Although she now says that her comments were taken out of context, they made me wonder, as those comments always do: why are so many women still denouncing feminism?

We can recall that feminism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” Much like in AA, where they say that “the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking,” there is no one right way to be a feminist — as long as you believe in equal rights for women, you qualify.

So what’s going on with the (powerful, successful) women of Hollywood? Why are they still lining up to announce that they don’t identify as feminists?

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queer girl

These Friends of Mine

lena dunham tina fey janet mock jane lynch heather havrilesky jeanette wintersonSix smart women whose memoirs make me feel like maybe I can do this grown-up thing after all. 

Here’s the thing: I have spent a lot of my adult life feeling incompetent, insecure, unsuccessful. I have worried about so many things.

I have been neurotic and self-absorbed, and then become obsessed with how self-absorbed I was, berating myself for it until I didn’t have any time or energy for anyone else.

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