Joseph Gordon-Levitt on What It Means For Him to Be a Proud, Male Feminist


Joseph Gordon-Levitt produced a thoughtful video exploring what it means for him to identify as a feminist and the nuances surrounding the label.

“To me it just means that your gender doesn’t have to define who you are,” Gordon-Levitt explains. “That you can be whatever you want to be, whoever you want to be, regardless of your gender.”

Acknowledging feminism’s complexities, the actor goes onto dispel notions positioning feminism as somehow “anti-men” and that the movement might even be old-fashioned.

“The facts are pretty contrary to this, if you actually look at the evidence of salaries vs. salaries for men,” he sayd. “There’s still a definite disparity.”

Earlier this year, Gordon-Levitt first revealed he was a proud feminist on the Ellen Degeneres Show, explaining his mother’s influence on his views of women and gender equality.

“It’s worth paying attention to the roles that are sort of dictated to us and realize that we don’t have to fit into those roles — we can be anybody we want,” he told Degeneres.

Just another reminder to Pharell, boys and girls can both be feminists, too.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate