Oh, hello there. Were you looking for another reason to love Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Of course you were! Well, here it is: he’s a feminist. A big, fat, consciousness-raising, hyphenated-surnamed, menschy advocate for gender equality. Swoon!

Gordon-Levitt opened up about his politics in an interview with The Daily Beast today:

I read that you consider yourself a “male feminist,” and you credit your parents who are educators and really taught you about the history of feminism. But nowadays, you have a lot of young stars coming out against being labeled a feminist.

Coming out against the label? Wow. I guess I’m not aware of that. 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. That, to me, is what “feminism” means. So yes, I’d absolutely call myself a feminist. And 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.

The Sin City star also touched on the topic when he appeared on The Ellen Degeneres Show earlier this year. He credited his mother with making him and his brother aware of the way women are objectified and judged by double-standards:

“We would always watch Lakers games as a family, but my mom would always point out every time the cheerleaders come on, ‘Okay, 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 didn’t mean any offense to any individual woman who was working as a cheerleader, but she wanted me and my brother to be aware of it because we see these images on TV, in the movies, and on 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.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, you are welcome to alter our perceived reality any time.

(Photo by Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)

Related: Joseph-Gordon Levitt is Taken

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Lena Dunham is NOT down with R. Kelly, his history of predatory allegations, or his new album, entitled “Black Panties.” Lena recently took to the Twittersphere to speak her mind on the controversial R&B singer, and was subsequently labelled a “hypocrite” for her own personal and professional relationship with Terry Richardson–the fashion photographer with a fairly tainted sexual past.

R. Kelly has been making the media rounds lately with the promotion of his new hyper- sexual album, his music video with Lady Gaga, and “stomach-churning” accusations featured in the Village Voice.

In response to the R. Kelly hoopla, Lena released a series of tweets, “The debate about good and bad feminism makes me want to take a nap for a year,” followed by “Nothing pains me more than when something like the R. Kelly convo comes to light and women turn on each other.”

This all seems fairly normal given R. Kelly’s sordid past and everyday persona, but since Lena is considered by many a “modern day feminist,” it’s hard to hate on “the Kellz” when you sometimes hang with Terry Richardson, who has also been charged with sexual harassment. Richardson dated Audrey Gelman for three years (a close friend of Lena’s) and also photographed Dunham in a series ironically titled, “Girl Power.”

As critics continued to call out Lena, she continued to tweet:

“I never want to be didactic on twitter. I want to recognize how freaking complex it is to be female right now, aka VERY.”

“Anyone who thinks I was saying anything but that R. Kelly is a sickening criminal is reading selectively.”

“Someone implied my statement about R Kelly was invalid because I’ve had my photograph taken by Terry Richardson.”

“I responded asking that my feminism not be picked apart because of one PR experience. You don’t learn to say no overnight.”

“Any man who takes advantage of any woman sickens me. That’s all and that’s always. No debate.”

Amen to all said above, Lena. It is immensely hard to be a female right now, sexual assault is horrific, and it must be tough to be portrayed in the media for supporting an alleged harasser, and then calling out an alleged harasser.

If anyone (like me) finds R. Kelly just a tad bit entertaining, please watch the video below of the singer defending the language and imagery on “Black Panties.”

A snippet: “If you’re gonna talk to a woman musically or even if you in the club talkin’ to her, she don’t want you to be weak about it. She want you to say what’s on her mind and keep it real. And I take that and put it on an album.”

R. Kelly Defends New Sexually Graphic Album by AP-Entertainment

(Photo by Getty Images)

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