There’s no denying that Helen Mirren is one powerhouse talent and role model. Now, in a candid new interview with the MAKERS campaign, she’s sharing insights on feminism, gender diversity and being viewed as displaying “sluttish eroticism” in her early career.
“Any woman now actually is a feminist,” she says in the new video. “They don’t realize it, because they’re living in a world feminism has, to a certain extent, created for them. Which is very exciting, because it’s entitled. That’s what I love about them. They’re entitled.”
Mirren recalls how as a young girl, she came face-to-face with the idea of defined gender roles for women for the first time.
“I do remember suddenly understanding how the world was stacked against me as a girl. I was just so horrified and shocked coming from a family that said, ‘No, you can be anything, you can do anything’ and then get ‘Boom! No you can’t. You be this and you’re not allowed to be anything else,'” she recalls in the video.
“I think the ’60s and ’70s were not a good time for women. It should have been liberating, but actually it wasn’t. It squeezed women,” the 70-year-old actress says of being dubbed an actress who displayed “sluttish eroticism” on screen.
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She continues, addressing the current state of feminism and gender equality.
“I always used to say ‘put your energy into changing roles for women in life,’ because as night follows day, as women’s roles change in life, women’s roles will change on the screen. Your banging your head against a brick wall, and a little bit of cement falls away, and I feel that the wall is just about to fall.”
The MAKERS campaign is AOL’s Emmy nominated women’s leadership platform that highlights the stories of groundbreaking women today to create the leaders of tomorrow. It is the largest collection of women’s stories ever assembled and other MAKERS include Annie Lennox, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Serena Williams, Sheryl Sandberg and Ellen DeGeneres.
