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The is coming March 8the International Day of Working Women, and it is always a good time to highlight women who, from their trenches, fight for women’s rights. Hollywood is a space where hundreds of them have fought against inequalities based on gender. Here we highlight five actresses who have given this fight.
Emma Thompson
The actress has particularly taken the flag of the body positive and the pressure placed on female bodies in Hollywood. Has been particularly critical of how the industry makes women hate their bodies, something was revealed in February of last year at a press conference at the Berlin Film Festival. When talking about one of the nude scenes of him in the movie of he’Good luck to you, Big Leo‘.
“If I put myself in front of a mirror, I’m always doing it like this,” he explained, making a gesture of shrinking his belly. “I can’t just stand there. Why am I doing that? It’s horrible! Women have been brainwashed our entire lives into hating our bodies.. That is a fact. Everything around us reminds us how imperfect we are and that everything is wrong with us“.
It is not the first time that Thompson exposed this problem. In 2017, he told the outlet skavlan that almost abandoned the filming of ‘Return to Brideshead‘, because she felt that one of her colleagues was being pressured by the producers to lose weight. “I told them ‘If you say this again, anyway, I’m leaving the shoot’“he counted.
Emma Watson
Like his namesake, Emma Watson has been outspoken in her fight for women’s rights. She has recounted on several occasions how since she was little she faced inequalities based on gender, when she was treated as “bossy”, when male colleagues were treated as “leaders” for the same attitudes. Since then, He has done what he could to change this reality.
With his worldwide fame achieved by the role of Hermione Granger in the saga’Harry Potter‘, the actress has used her platform to be an activist for women’s rights, even being named UN Women Goodwill Ambassador June 2014.
Watson has also declared herself a intersectional feministwhich has led her to give statements contrary to those of the author of the saga that brought her to fame, JK Rowlingwho has been branded on more than one occasion as transphobic for her position “critique of gender ideology”. To this, the actress replied “I am here for all witches”, giving a sign to include transgender women in their fight.
Viola Davis
Viola Davis, who recently acquired the status of EGOT (winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony), has proposed fight specifically for the rights of black women and seek a better world for her daughter, who she taught from a very young age not to apologize for raising her voice.
The protagonist of ‘The Woman King‘ She has been in this fight for years and has been critical of those who only focus on “white feminism”. She gave a lot to talk about with her Emmy speech in 2015. On that occasion, she was the first black woman to win the award for Leading Actress in a Drama.
“In my mind, I see a line and on it I see green grass and pretty flowers and beautiful white women with their arms open to me. But there’s no way I can get there. I can’t get past that line. That was Harriet Tubman in the 1800s. And let me tell you something: the only thing that separates women of color from white women is opportunity. You can’t win an Emmy for roles that don’t exist“, she said in her acceptance speech, criticizing the lack of black women in leading roles.
Natalie Portman
There have been many times that the actress and activist Natalie Portman has spoken out against inequality for reasons of gender in different contexts, such as in the Hollywood industry and in politics.
An example is during Variety’s Power of Women gala in 2018. At that time, the actress took advantage of her speech to put various issues on the table, including, the position of men in the fight against inequality. “Many behave as if we were living a game where nothing adds up. If women get respect and have access to power and are valued, they believe they will lose something“, said.
He also had a recognized moment, in which, presenting the nominees for Best Director at the Oscars, he stressed that it was only about men, in addition to wearing a dress with the names of female directors who deserved nominationshonoring them and problematizing the lack of recognition.
Portman was also one of the voices that publicly criticized producer Harvey Weinsteindenounced by several of his fellow actresses for cases of abuse, harassment and rape.
Ashley Judd
You can’t talk about activism for women in Hollywood without mentioning Ashley Judd. The actress has been tremendously political since her beginnings, criticizing the aesthetic pressure to which Hollywood subjects actresses and denounced those who abused actresses. She was one of the first actresses to speak publicly and anonymously against Harvey Weinstein, after having been his victim and having lost roles for standing firm.
The actress had her most controversial moments when, in a march for women’s rights in the middle of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton, she took the microphone to redefine one of the insults that the Republican candidate had used against his competition: “Nasty woman” (disgusting woman).
“I’m not as disgusting as racism, fraud, conflict of interest, homophobia, sexual assault, transphobia, white supremacy, misogyny or ignorance,” she said. “But yes, I am a disgusting woman! I am a disgusting woman like my grandmother and my mother who fought so that I could vote“.
Judd recently played herself in the movie ‘She said‘, where he revived the episode of the complaint against Weinstein and his participation in the report that uncovered his cases of abuse.
