The ‘F’ word scares the hell out of a lot of people. Feminism, that is. The myths about the polarizing word have reached an all-time high, which has allowed the concept to become the subject of easy humor and sarcastic jokes. Take for instance this tweet by a woman: “I don’t want men to treat women like equals. Have you seen how men treat each other?”
Jokes aside, though, feminism has been twisted in recent years to mean a lot of things that it is not. Because it is a relatively vague concept, it has become particularly easy to abuse it by attaching false connotations. A feminist is not someone who loathes men or who is against the institution of marriage or who looks down upon homemakers. It is not misandry, hunger for power, or dictatorial malice. Conversely, a feminist strives to build a society where a person’s gender does not put a ceiling on their achievement, and more importantly, on their happiness!
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A real change in society can come about only by destroying patriarchal notions of gender, which has begun to happen. In particular, Hollywood has stared the issue dead on, with male stars in addition to females openly taking a stand on feminism. Though there have been many throughout history, here are a few of the most notable proud male feminists in Hollywood.
1. Joseph Gordon-Levitt
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Summer may have given him a tough time in 500 Days Of Summer, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt loves women and womanhood as a whole! On the Ellen DeGeneres Show, he declared his stand saying, “I do call myself a feminist. Absolutely! …. It’s worth paying attention to the roles that are sort of dictated to us and that we don’t have to fit into those roles. We can be anybody we want to be.”
2. Daniel Radcliffe
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Harry Potter’s taking a strong stance on “friend zones” is humorous, but it does confront a weird reality around the term. He believes that it is an utterly misogynistic word developed by men themselves. He states that it is a male way of venting that a specific woman has not agreed to have a sexual relationship with him. I am proud that my childhood idol went on to become my adulthood hero too!
3. Will Smith
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A vocal male feminist, a great husband, and a fantastic parent, Will Smith told Prada magazine why he allowed his daughter to shave her head by saying, “If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. … She has got to have command of her body.”
4. John Legend
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A supporter of the “Chime for Change” movement, John Legend holds that, “All men should be feminists. If men care about women’s rights the world will be a better place. We are better off when women are empowered—it leads to a better society.”
5. Daniel Craig
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The James Bond and The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo star Daniel Craig gets better with age! He starred in the “We Are Equals campaign” video recounted by Dame Judi Dench (M).
It spells out some real dark truth! “Women are responsible for two-thirds of the work done worldwide. Yet earn only 10 percent of the total income and own one percent of the property. It’s not just about money and power. Every year, 70 million girls are deprived of basic education and a staggering 60 million are sexually assaulted on their way to school.”
6. Mark Ruffalo
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In a Huffington post interview, the Hulk’s Mark Ruffalo argued about the dearth of female directors in Hollywood. “I’m a feminist,” Ruffalo exclaimed proudly. He even blogged condemning women who discard feminism! Now that’s our man!
7. Ashton Kutcher
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The gorgeous and super-cute actor Ashton Kutcher is a famous male feminist who confidently expressed his frustration about female sexuality being so hush-hush while male sexuality is so openly discussed! He says that women “should be given the opportunity to have open conversations about their experiences from a level of education, as well.”
#8. Harry Styles
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My favorite One Direction member Harry Styles is a very proud feminist. Harry invites his fans to encourage the #HeForShe campaign. When asked if the band had some kind of a setting done if all of them fell for the same girl, he said, “We feel like that objectifies women. And that’s not really what we’re about.”
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9. Prince Harry
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The chivalrous Prince Harry showed his ‘true royal colors’ at the 2013 “Chime for Change” concert. He said,“We know that when women are empowered, they immeasurably improve the lives of everyone around them – their families, their communities, and their countries. This is not just about women, we men need to recognize the part we play too. Real men treat women with dignity and give them the respect they deserve.”
10. Ryan Gosling
As Noah in The Notebook, Ryan Gosling stole our hearts away. He does quite the same with his take on how fascinated he is with tough female characters. In his words, “I’m attracted to films that have strong female characters because there are strong female characters in my life.”
11. David Schwimmer
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Most of us know him as Ross Geller, the dorky but lovable boyfriend in the sitcom Friends. But what many of us don’t know is that David Schwimmer runs a center for rape victims. He says he was stirred by the encounters of two of his exes:“I’ve had two girlfriends who were victims of child sexual abuse,”he said. “That sensitized me to the issue in a way that I hadn’t been before.”
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12. Ben Stiller
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Walter Mitty is not so secretive about the discrimination against his female colleagues. According to him, “In general, there’s a certain ‘men’s club’ sort of attitude about comedy in terms of how men see women.But it goes deeper than that. I think men want to see women in a certain light, it’s subconscious and they’re not even aware of it. It has to do with men’s outlook on women. Hopefully that will change.”
13. Ian Somerhalder
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The Vampire Diaries star has voiced his worries about problems like domestic violence in an ad campaign. He goes on to say: “I wanted to take part in this campaign because it’s so easy to forget that many women live their lives in fear because of domestic violence. Men have an important role to play in sending out the message that real men do not hurt or abuse their partners.”
14. Antonio Banderas
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The man behind The Mask of Zorro has voiced his deepest apprehensions about female trafficking and has called it intolerable:“Two million women and girls are trafficked each year into prostitution, forced labor, slavery or servitude… These women are our sisters and our daughters, our grandmothers and our mothers. This is unacceptable. And it must stop now.”
15. Channing Tatum
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Channing Tatum, the man of every woman’s dreams, has captured our hearts not only because of the characters that he plays, but also because of his witty take on sexism in Hollywood.
When asked by Seth as to what he would do if faced by a zombie apocalypse, Tatum cleverly says that he would take refuge at Sandra Bullock’s because,“She’s a boss. I figure she’d have a fully stocked fridge, really cool bar and she’s been a woman in Hollywood and dealt with a bunch of assh*le men for so long that zombies are nothing.”
16. John Barrowman
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Barrowman is not up for any kind of misogynist side comments! This image says it all!
17. Matt Damon
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Matt Damon, the academy award-winning screenwriter and actor, shares about what would be the top-most aspiration on his wish list. In his words:“If I had a bucket list, I’d say raising my four girls to be strong, good women would be number one.”
Now that’s the kind of daddy that young women need to look up to.
18. Joss Whedon
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The American screenwriter Joss Whedon takes inspiration from his Mom while reminiscing about her. He goes,“[I write strong women characters] because of my mother. She really was an extraordinary, inspirational, tough, cool, sexy, funny woman. And that’s the kind of women I’ve always surrounded myself with, my friends and particularly my wife, who is not only smarter and stronger than I am, but occasionally taller too. I think it also goes back to my father and my stepfather, because they prized wit and resolve in the women they were with above all things and they were among the rare men who understood that recognizing someone else’s power doesn’t diminish your own.”
19. Jay Baruchel
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The She’s out of My League actor Jay Baruchel nailed it when he spoke about the way scripts are written for his female contemporaries.
“I’m constantly annoyed [by] how terribly written most females are in most everything — and especially in comedy. Their anatomy seems to be the only defining aspect of their character, and I just find that untruthful and it straight-up offends me. A lot of the strongest people I know are chicks. And as a viewer, I get a kick out of watching real characters. So I take it upon myself to clean that sh*t up and write actual women. And I like writing strong women, because as a straight male, there’s nothing more attractive to me than a strong girl.”
We completely agree with him about how badly Hollywood needs strong female characters that real women can relate to!
20. Simon Pegg
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If you haven’t followed @simonpegg on twitter, we suggest you do it ASAP! His two most kickass feminist tweets have been:
“Men, follow @EverydaySexism to be reminded of the absolute arseholes we are all capable of being. It’s not a guilt trip, it’s educational.”
And another one on April Fool’s Day:
“It must be tough being a woman on April Fools Day, having to briefly distrust men even further.”It must be tough being a woman on April Fools Day, having to briefly distrust men even furtherIt must be tough being a woman on April Fools Day, having to briefly distrust men even further
21. Chris Pratt
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Chris Pratt, The Guardians of the Galaxy star, was hilarious when he asked a journalist for a chauvinist red carpet demand that every female in the entertainment industry faces – who are you wearing?. Why can’t the red carpet questions be something about the role she played or how excited she is to be there? Why does it always start with who she’s wearing?
Chris Pratt has a killer answer for this:
: “Ask me who I am wearing?”
: “Who?”
: “I am wearing a human whose name used to be Chris Pratt!”
22. Aaron Taylor-Wood
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When his co-star was asked by a reporter how she felt about working as a nurse after playing a superhero in other movies, Aaron retorted at the journalist by exclaiming:
“Well, yeah, she plays a hero here as well!”
23. Aziz Ansari
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American actor and comedian Aziz Ansari is bewildered at people’s idea of feminism. He goes on to put it across with a splash of humor: “If you look up Feminism in the dictionary, it just means someone who believes that men and women have equal rights. I think the reason that so many people don’t clap is that the word is so weirdly used in our culture. Now people think that feminists means like, some woman is gonna start yelling at me.”
24. Alan Rickman
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Snape comes out loud and clear about his stand on feminism as a shared gain. He says,“There is nothing wrong with a man being a feminist, I think it is to our mutual advantage.”
25. Dustin Hoffman
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Hoffman was very candid in accepting how acting in “Tootsie” made him realize his own past sexist behavior.
“If I was going to be a woman, I would want to be as beautiful as possible. And they said to me, ‘Uh, that’s as beautiful as we can get you.’… It was not what it felt like to be a woman. It was what it felt like to be someone that people didn’t respect, for the wrong reasons.”
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These superstars and proud male feminists of Hollywood deserve the utmost respect for speaking out against female trafficking, domestic violence, marital rape, and generally taking male feminism to new and classy heights. It would certainly be extremely encouraging if more and more male feminists followed suit now and joined the struggle by giving their support.
Have we missed out any other male feminists from Hollywood? Let us know in the comments below.
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