JAMO magazine November 2016 / 27th issue | Page 9

Actor Danes is right there with Dunham, telling Glamour proudly that she's a feminist.

"I am a feminist. And I'm so glad that Lena Dunham exists, because she is one too, and she's quite vocal about it. Yes, women have more freedom and more influence than ever, but it's hardly equal. It's just not. It's really f--king crazy. I'm sorry I'm cursing. But it's wild that women are underrepresented [in Hollywood]. I have real anxiety about directing, and that's something to question and challenge and correct."

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Beyonce

Ellen Page

Claire Danes

Gordon-Levitt learned gender equality at a young age. When Ellen DeGeneres asked him if he was a feminist, he said, "I do call myself a feminist. Absolutely!"

"We would always watch Lakers games as a family, but my mom would always point out every time the cheerleaders came on, 'OK, so look, here's the story that gets told: The men get to be the heroic skilled athletes and the women just get to be pretty. She wanted me and my brother to be aware of it because we see these images on TV, in the movies, and in magazines all the time. And if you don't stop and think about it, it just sort of seeps into your brain and that becomes the way you perceive reality."

Actress Ellen Page has been outspoken about the representation of women in Hollywood, and she, too, thinks feminism should be a movement that everyone is a part of. Talking to the Guardian:

"I don't know why people are so reluctant to say they're feminists ... but how could it be any more obvious that we still live in a patriarchal world when feminism is a bad word? ... Feminism always gets associated with being a radical movement -- good. It should be. A lot of what the radical feminists [in the 1970s] were saying, I don't disagree with it."

"Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equall important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal? These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible."

Bey wrote an entire essay on gender equality after the Shriver Report found that 42 million women in the United States are either living in poverty or are on the brink of living in poverty.

NOVEMBER 2016 - 28TH iSSUE