Loose Lips

Marion Cotillard Doesn’t Consider Herself a Feminist

But remember, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé once didn’t either.
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By Andreas Rentz/Getty Images.

It’s been a big year for actresses embracing the F-word: feminist. From Emma Watson’s ongoing He for She campaign to multiple women supporting feminist causes in awards-show acceptance speeches, there seems to be a genuine sea change emerging in public support for women’s rights.

Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, however, isn’t jumping on that train, at least for now. Speaking to Porter magazine, the actress emphasized that “filmmaking is not about gender” and said plainly, “I don’t qualify myself as a feminist.”

She does believe in women’s rights, though, and in fighting for them. It’s the term “feminist” itself, it seems, that she can’t get on board with. I don’t want to separate women from men,” she said. “We’re separated already because we’re not made the same and it’s the difference that creates this energy in creation and love. Sometimes in the word feminism there’s too much separation.”

Cotillard is far from the first high-profile woman to think of feminism as pitting men against women. “I don’t really think about things as guys versus girls,” Taylor Swift responded when asked by the Daily Beast, in 2012, if she was a feminist. Beyoncé called the word “extreme” before coming around to calling herself a “modern-day feminist”. Both, though, have since embraced the term in high-profile ways. Could Cotillard have a similar change of heart down the road? She’d be in excellent company if she did.