I’m a fan of 14-year-old Rowan Blanchard. She’s rather precocious, intelligent and interesting. In the past few months, Rowan has given an impressive critique of how “squad goals” are quite damaging, and most recently, Rowan came out as “queer” (her word) because even though she has only liked boys in her 14 years of life, she wants to keep her life open to many possibilities. In the latest edition of Wonderland, Rowan talks about social media, the hate she got for coming out as queer, plus how she feels “sorry not sorry” about douchebags.
Her “Sorry Not Sorry” essay: “I think I felt a need to write that piece because I was sick of apologising for things that I really shouldn’t be sorry for. I see it now with my young sister and it scares me because I know at that age, when I was 12, I would literally spend 45 minutes putting on a whole face of make-up, when I really didn’t want to, but because I genuinely felt that if somebody saw me with my dark eye circles or a blackhead, that I’d risk offending them. You are supposed to say ‘I’m sorry’ for things that you’re not sorry for, especially to men.”
On social media: “I think social media is such a tool for people in my age group and such a tool for girls particularly… I feel like that’s where I started finding things that affected me, particularly politics. I learned through social media that we often talk about America like it’s a totally equal place, but that’s not always the case. You think certain things happen in third-world countries or places that are really far away from where you live, but through social media I realised that things are happening right in front of me. The thing that’s tough about it is that you’re subject to everybody else’s opinions when you didn’t necessarily ask for that. The downside to social media is it’s another place for girls to be made fun of and another way for girls to be degraded; the upside is that it’s also a way for girls — especially girls of colour, for example — to speak out and to take back some control.”
The backlash she faced over identifying as queer: “I’m okay with it now, but I still realise that I was allowing people to comment on something that’s very personal. The first day I tweeted about it, it was definitely scary to see people commenting about things that literally have nothing to do with them.”
She wants girls to stop blaming themselves: “I see that a lot of girls will thank me and be like: ‘I wanna change the world, but I don’t have a platform…’ I think if there was one thing that I want, it’s less self-blame among girls for not being able to ‘write a show about it’ or ‘write a movie about it’ or ‘write an essay about it’. When you’re a girl all these things are against you, so just existing is a form of protest. You don’t have to do more than that; all the other stuff is extra.”
One of the reasons I like Rowan so much is because at 14, she obviously still has some growing to do intellectually, but she’s got a great head start. She understands intersectional feminism better than most women twice her age, or three times her age or more. I also love the point she makes about some women/girls feeling guilty about wanting to do more, be more engaged, be more active, but that “just existing is a form of protest.” It’s true.
The one qualm I have with this whole thing is the qualm I have with a lot of young people, especially teenagers: they think social media is the world, and it’s just not. It’s just social media. Don’t take it so seriously, don’t live on Instagram, and don’t confuse your Instagram followers for the world at large. I also side-eye the “it was definitely scary to see people commenting about things that literally have nothing to do with them” comment because… well, she put it out there, on Twitter. Obviously, she’s a 14-year-old young woman and I’m not saying she “deserved” to be criticized, but it’s too cute by half to assume a 14-year-old self-identifying as queer on Twitter won’t get a reaction.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Instagram.
She’s annoying…
You’re seriously dragging a *child’s* looks?!
Also, way to prove her point.
Yeah that was a bit mean, she’s just super annoying to me.
…wow, that’s just low.
hahaha I can’t believe you said that, wasn’t expecting it and also, the first comment.
So bad
She annoys me too, she’s not very bright
It’s with that type of negativity that girls feel that what they have to say doesn’t matter and lose confidence.
I’ll tell you what’s annoying is watching Miley twerking and what’s super annoying is when ignorance and stupidly try to overshadow a young feminist expressing her insightful views.
She is 14, there are a lot of 30 year olds ( or older) who don’t even have half her intellect or insight. As clearly exhibited above.
In certain parts of the world literally being a girl is a form of protest. They have odds against them since day one. Their existence is marred by inequity and injustice.
Sarah01
Yes, watching Miley twerk is annoying.
And I agree in certain parts of the world being a girl is a protest, I don’t argue about that, what I don’t like is the rest of what she said, I don’t think she is bright, there’s nothing special or intelectual about what she said, she keeps contradicting herself.
And sorry if my comment is rude, that’s why I never comment, always happens.
Man, what was I doing at 14, oh yeah, sneak watching Dawson’s Creek!
You have to understand that for kids and teens, social media is their life. It’s all they’ve known. We can’t blame them for putting so much importance on it. Social media can also be used for positive things. Now if we could only show girls that you don’t need to post half naked pics of yourselves, and show boys that those instagram models don’t really look like that in real life, we might get somewhere.
I feel like she still needs to grow up before exposing her thoughts.
…no it isn’t. half of us are women. It isn’t magic.That’s like saying every single woman that has had a baby is a miracle worker; it’s simple biology. Existing in a way or in a place that we are told we shouldn’t be is protest. But that seems to be the whole issue with Millenials; they get offended when you tell them they actually have to DO SOMETHING. * You want to protest? Go do it. You want to set yourself apart? You have to think and find a way. Existing is not protest. Existing is really life’s only freebie. She started that comment with a good train of thought and then it totally went off the rails! You don’t actually HAVE to write that screenplay, you can just exist?? You don’t even have to TRY? The whole world is against women, so DO NOTHING? That’s your plan? But if you do do something, that’s nice, it’s extra? NOooooo. It isn’t. The more I thought about it the more angry I got. Or am I completely missing something here?
I think she’s trying to apply her personal experiences as a girl/young woman as universal and then herself as some kind of leader and that just doesn’t wash with me. I can see how her celebrity status could make that happen. Her world is not a representation of the real world, and I think it’s more important for younger girls to know that. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s really trying to do good and be a representative for what she believes in; I just take issue with the larger attitudes that influenced her words here. Not sure that’s an excuse though.
*I am a millenial, though I’m older than RB. (26) I say that as someone who has to deal with this every. single. day.
So existing in places where girl infants are murdered due to it being unfavorable to have a female child or women who face risk of being raped because they walk alone or even being denied half of your rightful medical care denied to you because of your genitals is a freebie?
I disagree. In this country alone I see women, lower income and minority, made into 2nd and 3rd class citizens because they don’t have the right income bracket or skin tone to have rights and that’s just expected and accepted. Vicious cycles repeating themselves while those on both sides ignore them. That has nothing to do with millenials and everything to do with baby boomers.
All. The. Up votes!
I think you’re misunderstanding my objection. I never said the world wasn’t stacked against women; it very much is and I recognize that. Existing was not anyone’s choice is what I meant by existence is life’s only freebie. My point is that (unless I’m wrong) she says that women doing something about those unfair things you mentioned is “extra”. Woman existing in the world is a fact (though no, that existence is not an equal existence with men); woman coming together and demanding change and working towards it is protest. She seems to say that the part where woman actually DO SOMETHING for the positive with their existence is extra and that hacks me off. As I read it, she is saying that it’s ok to do nothing because you’re woman and the world is against you or you “can’t” so you don’t even try. That’s wrong IMO especially because in the next breath she’s talking about changing society. You have to be part of that change! You have to go and do things for the positive. Just existing and knowing about these problems is not enough.
I understand where you’re coming from but there will always be more people who need help than there will be activists. Those who struggle the most and need the most help often don’t have the freedom to simply ‘do something’ about it. There have been studies done however, that show there is greater activism and social justice work in younger generations so doing something isn’t necessarilly part of the problem.
For me I think she speaks from more of an intersectional pov. In many states merely existing IS a form of protest. In states where transgender rights are being fought against, abortion clinics are being forced to close, and gay marriage is under constant attack being a woman and existing in your own individual circumstances is a protest against a majority that would rather you didn’t exist at all imo. We have politicians going through every corner to try and legislate people out of existance and those who they target are often at a disproportionate risk of suicide and poverty.
I see where you are coming from too, except I don’t think she’s speaking from an intersectional POV, just a Tumblr generation/celebrity one. Not saying your statement is wrong, in fact I agree with it, but I think you took my comments too far into real world major issues. (Though I could argue all day about how much activism my generation actually does.) My comments and ire don’t extend into the broader sense that yours did. I’m talking about the tumblr/celebrity/pop culture/internet world. The one that is riddled with slacktivism and special snowflake syndrome, which is is where my ire is directed. That and the fact that I’m considered part of that generation. In the examples she gave there IS something that those girls could be doing, even if it turns out that they aren’t good at it, and she told them that it was “extra”. Like it was unnecessary.
Agree to disagree.
I think Rowen has proven herself to actually be concerned about feminism beyond a first world perspective. She’s written essays about race and intersectional feminism before and elaborated on those thoughts through her Twitter so I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that this isn’t a ‘Tumblr’ thing.
To me for better or worse the brand of feminism I often see praised from Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, and Emma Watson is very much Tumblresque. It condenses serious issues into commercial talking points that can be gifed and upvoted to death. It often ignores that the world is very different as soon as you do step out of that upper class arena and instead focuses on the most shallow parts of feminism. I’m part of the same generation as you and Rowen and I’m personally more tired of that prattle.
Agreed to disagree on RB and her statements here. I’m not on social media at all so I don’t know anything about what RB posts there. I just can’t with the her saying that it’s ok for women to not do something because the odds are against them and that just being is praise-worthy. That to me is very Tumblr.
I do agree with your second paragraph.
I disagree on the idea of social media being JUST social media.
It isn’t anymore. Social media is a very large part of our world and I feel like it goes unseen by most adults.
Turning off the computer and walking away is easy if no one cares about you. But in these days of cyber bullying, doxxing, and swatting that world will still exist and continue to effect you even if you do walk away. Posting a comment can have a message group choose you as a total stranger to hate and mock. Posting a picture can have it taken for use in any number of ways. You’d be surprised how many times a person is targeted because their face was literally pulled out of a metaphorical hat online.
Feeling that pressure of knowing you are suddenly a topic of discussion for hundreds/thousands/millions of people and you have no way of controlling it is incredibly frightening. Knowing that girls who hate and bully you at school can spend all night laughing about how you should kill yourself online has a very real world effect.
I would disagree. Its become a scapegoat to back up false feminism, racism, PC and other nonsense. Its all SJW 101 crap. I believe it will go away or at least tone down one day. Tons of celebs and regular people don’t use social media and they get by just fine.
But that doesn’t really address what it is for those that do use it.
Saying social media will be used less in the future doesn’t seem to follow the train of our technological advancement as a society. A few million people who don’t use social media don’t account for the billions who do. It doesn’t address how our world at large has changed drastically as a result of technology and how much of our real world is effected by social media.
Banking, communication, health and medicine as a few examples all depend on a thriving social media and Internet presence in developed worlds and hurt those without access to them. Outlets for social issues and support groups are able to thrive because separate and disenfranchised groups have a way to communicate and create real world representation that they didn’t have before because of social media.
But that also has real world struggles to go with it including swatting. You don’t need to be on any social media to be swatted but what strangers do online can have that effect on you.
I would also social media has become a big way of how we connect with each other and to the world. Because of social media we can find out whats happening with the rest of the world in one easy click. Not only that but its become a big tool in the marketing aspect. Like it or not, social media has made a big impact so I agree that social media is not JUST social media.
I’m sick of this whole Tumblr-influenced ~~wow ur doing so well!!! ur so brave!!! well done u for existing!!!~ culture. Not everything is empowering, not everything is a form of protest.
Love Rowen, would MUCH rather hear feminism discussed by people who actually have something valuable to say.
I get tired of giving the proverbial cookie and pat on the head to mainstream feminists who recite Women’s Studies 101 and think it applies to anyone but other women in the same boat as them.
I find it sad that Blanchard is criticized so harshly when she speaks out on feminism, especially compared to other celebrities who get coddled/the proverbial cookie and pat on the head treatment for saying far less and with much less knowledge on feminist issues. She’s not in a high-profile position on feminist issues and she’s still a child, yet she doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt.
bless you.
<3
I love her too. She’s only 14 and expressing herself and growing. She’s thinking! and I love that.
I understand what she is saying with the “just existing” comment. I think she is trying to say to girls who feel powerless and invisible that fighting to survive is half the battle. Women, young women especially, can feel as though their voice doesn’t matter. They feel as though if they aren’t famous, their opinions don’t mean anything. It is at this stage in life that women learn to stop speaking their truth. Young girls have to know that their existence matters. They have to know that small acts of kindness and consciousness matter and that trying to better yourself on an everyday level CAN change the world!
Also, social media isn’t just twitter of Instagram. This website for example is a form of social media. We comment and talk about things we think are important to talk about (most of the time lol). Social media gives people the chance to hold conversations and state opinions on a broader spectrum.
And you can access topics and people from around the world which you otherwise would not be able to.
and bless you, too 🙂
<3
personally, i am very happy with everything she said.
especially considering she is only 14.
as she matures and fine tunes her perspective, she is (potentially) going to have a really strong effect on other young women…and of the right kind.
mho.
Like……as an (adult) woman I’d love to see this child be ….a child? Idk. Social commentary from public figures can really be impactful…..but I don’t like her as a messenger.
Also teenagers tend to think they understand more about the world than they do, hence, statements like being a woman is an act of protest.. it’s not and it shouldn’t be.
+1, I want to shout at her: enjoy being a teenager, don’t overthink everything and stop caring so much about other people’s thoughts!
And am I the only one who finds it odd that she is talking about men (and not boys)? I mean she is 14 yrs old. But English is not my native language, so maybe I’m missing sth.
Also, I find the following paragraph kind of defeatist. How about enabling girls to write a show or movie or essay? IMO it’s better to try and fail than to not try at all…
“I think if there was one thing that I want, it’s less self-blame among girls for not being able to ‘write a show about it’ or ‘write a movie about it’ or ‘write an essay about it’. When you’re a girl all these things are against you, so just existing is a form of protest. You don’t have to do more than that; all the other stuff is extra.”
this x 100.
Just because one can comment on social media doesn’t mean they should.
I think there would be a lot of people in the world with problems far greater than “less self blame among girls for not being able to write a show about it”. First world problems.
Less navel gazing. Spout worldly philosophy when one is middle aged and understand what’s really going on and have better perspective on it.
I think a problem for many young people (girls in particular) in the world of social media, is that they confuse attention for respect.
HA! One of my fav quotes is: “Seek respect, not attention. It lasts longer.”
That’s a great quote:)
It feels like some people are being pretty rough on her. She’s 14 years old and engaged in thinking through how the world works, what feminism means to her and how to communicate political ideas with other young people. Good on her.
I don’t think patronizing young women by telling them to just go be a child or keep quiet until you’re older and more experienced (most of the culture tells young women this anyhow) is useful if we want to raise a confident generation of young women. We can talk with young people about their ideas, disagree, agree, just have a dialogue etc without making them feel like they don’t have a right to speak or hold an opinion.
Just because teenagers aren’t 35 with a mortgage, doesn’t mean they don’t live in the world and experience some of its pressures. I don’t reckon anything terrible ever happened from listening to a young person trying to develop and articulate a world view.
Thank you! As I said in another thread, it’s sad that she gets criticized so harshly and doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt that others do.
And these criticisms are proving her point! It’s essentially “shut up, you’re just a stupid little girl, what do you know.”
“I don’t think patronizing young women by telling them to just go be a child or keep quiet until you’re older and more experienced (most of the culture tells young women this anyhow) is useful if we want to raise a confident generation of young women.”
Seriously. It’s intriguing to me that so many complain about teenagers being influenced by girls such as Kylie posing sexually and using their platform to focus nearly exclusively on the physical but also don’t like this young woman trying to use her platform to have thought and discussion about feminism and representing yourself.
There’s a gap clearly happening there. If you don’t encourage girls to think of themselves as the face of feminism when they are young and examine their place in the world then what right do you have to whine when they’re in their 20’s and denying they are a feminist. You can’t have it both ways and expect the women you told to shut up when they were teens will suddenly respect and listen when you do want their support later.
+1. All 3 of your comments pretty much sum up how I feel about Rowan. I have mad respect for her, and like the fact that she’s not apathetic about things that have to do with equality. So many people- whether they’re in their teens, 20’s, 30’s 40’s, or 50’s- have this mentality of “Yeah, well, I’m ok with gay marriage and support the separation of church and state. So I’ve done my piece for equality and any discussions about it beyond that are basically just lame PC whining and attention-seeking. You all can shut up now. I’m done.” So the Rowans, Zendayas, Amandlas, Lordes, and Ariel Winters of the world are refreshing (and since the topic of empowerment has been coming up lately, I find what those girls represent to be very empowering.)
As the mother of a girl about her age, I hate the phrase ‘sorry, not sorry’. It really rubs me the wrong way and I hear it way too much. And why was she worried about putting on a face full of makeup at age 12? The rest, while I think she can be a bit too precocious, I’d rather a teenager be so in this form–giving out your opinions and learning about things like racism, sexism–than in many other ways.
“And why was she worried about putting on a face full of makeup at age 12? ”
I think it’s because the Kylie Jenners of the world have a lot of influence.
I like Rowan but something about her bugs me. She’s very wise and precocious and I love that, and I love how confident she is. But she’s very much a typical teen in that she thinks she knows everything about the world so some of what she says is grating (to me, anyway). Still, she’s a great role model for kids IMO.
” And why was she worried about putting on a face full of makeup at age 12?”
Because there’s millions of young girls who feel pressured to do the same at that age? I’ve seen makeup tutorials by 12 yr olds for their peer group on YouTube.
The world is very different than what many expect and I think she speaks confidently about that. Sadly we do have a lot of 12 yR olds who do feel pressured to mimic an ideal of sexuality when they’re still so young and vulnerable.
“And why was she worried about putting on a face full of makeup at age 12? ”
Because girls are pressured to “look” a certain way. Whether its by their own peers or what they see on TV/in the magazines. Because she’s an actor, she may have felt even more pressure. And I think thats sort of the point of why she brought it up.
Go back to tumblr please.