This is one of those stories that should be put in the “you’ve got to be kidding me” folder.
Rowan Blanchard is a 13-year-old girl who also happens to be a Disney star – oh, and she also just penned an essay on “intersectional feminism” that has Harry Potter actress and fellow feminist Emma Watson fawning over.
Starring on the Disney Channel show Girl Meets World – a knockoff of the similarly titled Boy Meets World show that aired on ABC almost 15 years ago, and now those kids are the parents – Blanchard, for reasons unknown, was asked how she felt about the term “white feminism” and how such feminism would exclude basically any other women of color, non-cis/queer women. Did you get all that?
Instead of doing what any other normal 13 year old girl would do on a weekend – kicking butt in a soccer game or texting or texting to friends -- Blanchard took to her Instagram account and wrote a three-part essay on white versus black feminism..."ad like, how it’s 'such an important thing to be discussing.” She writes:
I have made a very big point at making sure my personal feminism includes everyone – and educating myself and discussing these topics have really helped.
Issues that are commonly thought of as feminist issues include sexual assault, rape, abortion, Planned Parenthood, domestic violence, equal education, and the wage gap. Feminists have also adopted marriage equality and gay/lesbian rights as their issue which is wonderful.
However, with as many issues as feminists have succeeded in adopting, many of us seem to have not accepted the fact that police brutality and race issues are our issues too.
Then, the 13 year old actress “gets deep” by explaining exactly how white and non-white women experience sexism and inequality to her followers, most of which, I’m guessing, probably have no idea what the term sexism or feminism mean, let alone how it is experienced by women of every color tone on the planet.
After throwing in a few words about feminism and sexism, #BlackLivesMatter, some police brutality stories, and how trans women and trans youth have been “robbed of their souls,” the 13 year old genius ends her “powerful essay” concluding how gender and racial stereotypes contribute to the problem:
"I have personally seen men get called gay/f**/pu*** for wearing anything even remotely feminine. Gay is simply not an insult...To only acknowledge feminism from a one-sided view when the literal DEFINITION is the equality of the sexes is not feminism at all," she finished. "We need to be talking about this more. Discussion leads to change."
Forget being a Disney teen star. I’m waiting for her to start teaching a feminism class at UC Berkeley next weekend.
