Listen up, fellas! Mark Ruffalo, Ryan Gosling and more of Hollywood’s leading men have staunchly supported their female colleagues and utilized their platforms to speak out in celebration of feminism and gender equality.
The 13 Going On 30 actor is a vocal advocate for a handful of hot-button issues — and he’s not afraid to get a little backlash for speaking his mind. A member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ruffalo called for more female-led comic book stories and empowering portrayals of female superheroes while promoting Avengers: Age of Ultron.
“I think part of the problem is that people are frustrated that they want to see more women, doing more things, in superhero movies, and because we don’t have as many women as we should yet, they’re very, very sensitive to every single story line that comes up right now,” Ruffalo said during a Reddit AMA in May 2015 as the film faced criticism for how it interpreted Black Widow’s character (played by Scarlett Johansson). “When we do that with a woman, because there are so few story lines for women, we become hyper-critical of every single move that we make because there’s not much else to compare it to. … The fact that this is a debate that’s coming out of this movie is probably a positive thing.”
The Spotlight star is no stranger to using his platform to help others. Gosling, for his part, credits his family for inspiring him to take a stand.
“I think women are better than men. They are stronger, more evolved,” the La La Land actor, who shares daughters Esmeralda and Amada with Eva Mendes, told the Evening Standard in June 2016. “You can tell especially when you have daughters and you see their early stages, they are just leaps and bounds beyond boys immediately.”
Gosling pointed out that “it’s our time as men” to step up and be allies when it comes to achieving gender equality. While using their voices to champion the cause is a powerful move, Orange Is the New Black alum Matt McGorry advises his male friends and colleagues to listen more than they speak.
“Celebrities tend to get a lot of credence on these issues, and particularly as a man who is coming forward, it’s easier for me to get credit for standing up than those who are actually affected,” he told Motto in 2017, teasing, “I don’t need to be talking to women about feminism.”
Scroll down to see some of the most inspiring quotes from famous male feminists.
After the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series star, his Disney+ costar Olivia Rodrigo, and Sabrina Carpenter all released songs with similar premises, fans were quick to speculate there was a dramatic love triangle brewing. After getting asked a lot of questions about his romantic status and who’s song was about who, Joshua Bassett set the record straight in a GQ profile.
The “Lie Lie Lie” singer said, "[Everyone] is asking me about Sabrina and Olivia. Why don't we focus on these women for who they are? Let's focus on the art that they're making and how great they are instead of their relationship to a boy.”
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The British actor swiftly shut down a sexist question from a critic at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival while promoting Mad Max: Fury Road. After being asked about how he felt working with "all these women" in what "was supposed to be a man's movie," Hardy said that he never had any doubts about his role in the empowering action movie. "Not for one minute," he replied.
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"Oh, gosh. Oh, yeah, I've always been a feminist," the Frasier alum told The Cut in November 2015. "I think that feminism includes just being proud and comfortable in your skin as a woman and a man being comfortable in his skin. That's where I live with it. I'm a huge supporter of women."
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While he's best known for playing a superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Massachusetts native is an exemplary ally offscreen. "The hardest thing to reconcile is that just because you have good intentions, doesn't mean it's your time to have a voice," he told The New York Times in March 2018, noting that he'd learned that listening to women's stories amid the rise of the #MeToo movement and reading feminist literature was a powerful way to show support.
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The How to Get Away With Murder alum has been outspoken about his stance on women's rights, and although his support wasn't always well-received, he learned to find his place as an ally. "There are things that I think I said or tweeted in the beginning of understanding these issues that I definitely wouldn't do today — and quite honestly, they embarrass me to look back on," he said in an interview with Motto in 2017. "But I think that part of any journey is making mistakes."
At the time, McGorry shared a few key pointers for other men hoping to join the fight for gender equality, including lifting up marginalized voices and listening to women's experiences. "We need to be having these conversations with other men," he explained. "As I've learned, I don't need to be talking to women about feminism. But I do need to talk to men about it — and I've been doing that quite aggressively, much to the chagrin of my guy friends."
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“I think there’s so much that’s not said about sex in our country, even from an educational level,” Kutcher, a human rights activist, said during a press event for his 2011 flick No Strings Attached. “The one thing they teach about is how to get pregnant or how to not get pregnant, but they don’t really talk about sex as a point of pleasure for women … Part of that creates a place where women aren’t empowered around their own sexuality and their own sexual selves, and from a purely entertainment point of view, to create a more with a female lead that’s empowered with her own sexuality is a powerful thing.”
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Gosling, dad to two girls, shared his thoughts on feminism during an interview with Evening Standard in June 2016. “It’s our time as men to be on the receiving end of the stick. I grew up with women so I’ve always been aware of it,” he said. “When my mother and I walked into the grocery store, mine would circle the block in cars. It was very scary, very scary, especially as a young boy. Very predatory — a hunt. I think women are better than men. They are stronger, more evolved. You can tell especially when you have daughters and you see their early stages, they are just leaps and bounds beyond boys immediately.”
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“While the unique challenges faced by girls is not a topic I have spoken much about in the past, I think it’s important to acknowledge something that has become obvious to me and is already known to everyone in this room,” the royal said while visiting Nepal in March 2016. “There are way too many obstacles between girls and the opportunities they deserve. So many countries are ailing to protect the opportunities of young women and girls in the way they do for boys. I believe that it is vitally important for men like me to acknowledge this as loudly and openly as role models do, like President Bhandari, the U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, and activists like Malala. It cannot just be women who speak up for girls.”
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Feminism is a sign of the times! “How can you say young girls don’t get it? They’re our future,” the “Two Ghosts" crooner, who was once seen sporting a shirt with the phrase “Women Are Smarter,” told Rolling Stone in April 2017. “Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents — they kind of keep the world going. Teenage girl fans, they don’t lie. It if they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.”
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“What that means to me is that you don’t let your gender define who you are — you can be who you want to be, whether you’re a man, a woman, a boy, a girl, whatever. However you want to define yourself, you can do that and should be able to do that, and no category ever really describes a person because every person is unique,” the 500 Days of Summer star said in August 2014 to The Daily Beast. “That, to me, is what feminism means. So yes, I’d absolutely call myself a feminist. If you look at history, women are an oppressed category of people. There’s a long, long history of women suffering abuse, injustice and not having the same opportunities as men, and I think that’s been very detrimental to the human race as a whole. I’m a believer that if everyone has a fair chance to be what they want to be and do what they want to do, it’s better for everyone. It benefits society as a whole.”
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“Since there have been men and women, there have been funny women,” the Saturday Night Live comic, who regularly wears a National Organization of Women shirt, said to Glamour in April 2013. “F—king idiot-ass men keep saying that women aren’t funny. It makes me crazy. I find it disgusting and offensive every time.”
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He’s not a regular dad, he’s a cool dad. “[Jade and I] let Willow cut her hair,” Smith told Parade in May 2012. “When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace with me some other man when she goes out in the world. She can’t cut my hair but that’s her hair. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.
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“We have made it acceptable that women are spoken for and that needs to change now,” the Vampire Diaries heartthrob told She Knows in February 2015. “Within the realm of advertising, marketing, fashion, technology and athletics, women are told where they fit properly and how to act once in their right place. It is beyond important that girls speak up, that they act fearlessly, that they fall in love with the timbre of their powerful voices — but that isn’t the complete solution. The men placed into positions of patriarchal power need a massive shift to correspond with women’s uprising and support this societal shift as a whole. Men need to acknowledge the evolution that comes along with embracing and championing the surge of powerful women worldwide. When we celebrate the true and irrefutable power of women, we can then truly celebrate the progress of men.”
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“Oh yeah, for sure [I’m a feminist]. My mum’s a big feminist. I think that my views on things, as far as my respect for women and so on, came from my mum,” the Thor actor told Radio Times in March 2016. “My dad has a very balanced and respectful view on a lot of things too. They were huge positive influences in my life. I think the balance has been tupped for a long time heavily in men’s direction.”
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“So many things come to mind when you have a daughter born in this world,” the Jane the Virgin star said in October 2017 while collaborating with the storytelling platform MAKERS. “Just a deep responsibility to let her have a role model of a dad that empowers her to believe that anything is possible, and that she can do anything anyone else can do regardless of whether or not she’s a woman. So I started to go down the path of redefining in my mind what it means to be a man. That means using my platform to both empower women and to show that as a man, I can love my family.”
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“Men ruled the roost and women played a subservient role [in the 1960s]. Working wives were a rarity, because their place was in the home, bringing up the kids,” the Mad Men alum told Daily Mail in February 2011. “The women who did work were treated as second class citizens, because it was a male-dominated society. That was the fact of life then. But it wouldn’t be tolerated today, and that’s quite right in my book … People look back on those days through a thick veil of nostalgia, but life was hard if you were anything other than a rich, powerful, white male.”
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All of Us loves all of him! At a press conference in March 2013, Legend said, “All men should be feminists. If men care about women’s rights, the world will be a better place. We are better off when women are empowered — it leads to a better society.”
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The late-night host has not shied away from supporting his female colleagues. In September 2011, the comedian told Elle, “When you work with the sort of really strong women that I work with, the idea that anyone would want to make decisions for them is hard to wrap your head around.”
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"I know this is a big moment for feminism and it’s fantastic that we’re having conversations about it and it’s being discussed, but it’s also … I guess that certain people want you to come out as a feminist,” the Harry Potter star told Just Jared in November 2014. “Of course I am. I’m an egalitarian, I think about anything and everything. But yeah, it is funny that it’s assumed that you’re not until you say you are? But that’s probably men’s fault. We have to do better.”
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“It becomes kind of a moral issue about who you are and how you view the women in your life,” the Avengers star, an outspoken feminist, said in January 2014 via a promotional video for The Center of Reproductive Rights. “There’s a common sense and a wisdom and a decency in women that needs to be upheld and doesn’t warrant being pushed back 30 years into the whole nightmare that brought about the abortion rights movement that we’ve fought for and created laws around … As a man, I see no wisdom in going backwards.”
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