--- title: Watch Joseph Gordon-Levitt Explain Why He's a Feminist description: Anyone who thinks men can't be feminists should watch this video canonical: https://time.com/3426757/watch-joseph-gordon-levitt-explain-why-hes-a-feminist-in-a-truly-thoughtful-way/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-24T20:56:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:01:40.026Z og:title: Watch Joseph Gordon-Levitt Explain Why He's a Feminist og:description: Anyone who thinks men can't be feminists should watch this video og:url: https://time.com/3426757/watch-joseph-gordon-levitt-explain-why-hes-a-feminist-in-a-truly-thoughtful-way/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff2548193faa25d8/6986a556cd68483103096a2a/joseph-gordon-levitt.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Joseph Gordon-Levitt attends a screening of "Don Jon" during the 57th BFI London Film Festival at Odeon West End on October 16, 2013 in London. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Joseph Gordon-Levitt Explain Why He's a Feminist twitter:description: Anyone who thinks men can't be feminists should watch this video twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff2548193faa25d8/6986a556cd68483103096a2a/joseph-gordon-levitt.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Joseph Gordon-Levitt Explain Why He's a Feminist in a Truly Thoughtful Way > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Each week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published weekly. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=06de6be4-2d57-4f44-89c2-9032922c0830&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: RE- Feminism (REQUEST) [Watch (HLS stream): RE- Feminism (REQUEST)](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/4YcqeUeD.m3u8) (5:02)  _Published 2014-09-24. RE- Feminism (REQUEST)_  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Sep 24, 2014 8:56 PM UTC  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Sep 24, 2014 8:56 PM UTC We’ve known Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a feminist for a while now, but we didn’t know he was so thoughtful about it. Not until this week anyway when he posted a new video where he not only explains why he’s a feminist, but also gets into some of the debates raised in the “Women Against Feminists” Tumblr blog. This doesn’t feel like one of those “love me, I’m a feminist!” PR stunts– it actually seems like he’s really contemplated the issue and he makes some excellent points for anyone who thinks we “don’t need” feminism anymore. This video is a must-watch for anyone who thinks men can’t be feminists. And it’s timely, since the UN just announced a campaign called He for She, designed to get men involved in women’s rights. ## Transcript Are we recording? [ MUSIC ] So, a while back, I was on the Ellen show and Ellen asked me if I would call myself a feminist. And I said, I absolutely would. And then, recently, I gave this interview with a journalist who was named Marlo Stern, and he asked me what does that mean to you, to be a feminist? Or what is [ INAUDIBLE ] [ INAUDIBLE ] I told them that to me it just means that your gender doesn't have to define who you are, that you can be whatever you wanna be, whoever you wanna be, regardless of your gender. And this interview got a lot of attention on the internet which I thought was really cool, I think good thing to talk about, nd certainly there was a lot of support and I'm very grateful for the people who are saying that it was cool that I would call myself a feminist, and then there's a lot of people out there who are sort of against the word feminism and, can take it to mean a lot of different things. I actually wasn't as aware of this. I even found a site call women against feminism. tumbl. com and I found it very interesting looking through that site and seeing what different people had to say who didn't identify with that word. You know people with. Find that word feminism to be sort of anti- men. Or indicate that it was not right for a woman to do things that are traditionally considered the woman's place, like stay home and raise kids. And then there were some people. That we're saying feminism made sense in the past but it doesn't anymore because men and women are equal now. And I'm no expert but I think the facts are pretty contrary to this. I think if you actually look at the evidence of like, salaries for women versus salaries. For men, at least in the United States, there's still a definite disparity. And that's just one of many examples. [ MUSIC ] So, it's complicated, and I grant that it's complicated. And I think it's a really great thing for us all to be talking about. And in the interest of furthering this conversation, I wanna ask. You guys, what you think about this. What does that word " Feminism" mean to you? Now, as you might, or might not know, I run this company called Hit Record that I started more as a hobby many, many years ago with my brother and since 2010 we've been doing it as. Production company and since last year we've been making it a television show and the first season of the television show was on last year on the new cable channel pivot. You can watch the first episode of the television show for free, right here on YouTube. But this is the kind of thing we do on our show is ask interesting questions, get the conversation going and then maybe make art based on things people say in those conversations. So we're working on the second season of the show right now and every episode of the show has a theme and one of the episodes. Is gonna be regarding your mom. And for me, this question of feminism is perfect for that episode because the first person who ever told me about that word feminism was my mom. My mom was active in sort of what's called the second wave of the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s. Of course, the first wave was the woman's suffrage movement. Movement, back before women could vote in this country, there was a movement for women to be allowed to vote. So not only was feminism something that my mom sort of taught me about, obviously motherhood in general is right at the core of what feminism is or isn't. A lot of people who don't identify with that word, feminism, feel like that word is somehow against motherhood. Me personally, I don't take it that way. For me, as a feminist I would say it should up to the woman to decide. If she wants to be a mom then she should be a mom. If that's, you know, what she wants to do full time then that's awesome. That's what my mom did. But if she also, if she wants to go out and. Work, have a career other than being a mom. Then she should be able to do that as well, and that's to the benefit of everybody. So here's what I want you to do. Talk into your camera just like I'm doing right now and tell me, what does the word feminism mean to you. Would you call yourself a feminist? Why? Why not? And I'm perfectly, perfectly open to hearing why you wouldn't call yourself a feminist. I want to hear all sorts of opinions. Then come to our site hit record and upload that video footage. Contribute it to this collaboration that I started regarding feminism. And we'll use a bunch of different, thing that people say. And maybe, who knows, maybe something that somebody says will spark a script. Maybe, you know, if you're a writer out there and you see something that somebody says or an exchange that people have on the site, you can turn that into a script and that can become a short film. Maybe somebody has something to say and you watch them on the site and you're an illustrator. And you start drawing that person and that can become a cartoon or maybe it inspires you to write a song. These are the sorts of things springboard into the pieces that we make on our variety show Hit Record on TV. So that's it I'm really looking forward to see what you guys have to say and we'll see where it goes from there. Thanks again. 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