Anne Hathaway admits that she used to resist being directed by women because of internalized misogyny
While she might now be an ardent supporter of women and women’s rights, Anne Hathaway has spoken about her own internalized misogyny and sexism, and it’s actually super important to hear.
It was only last month that Anne Hathaway was giving a speech at the United Nations about womanhood and paid parental leave (something that it seems her 1-year-old son enjoyed immensely), but it seems that the actor’s behavior wasn’t always so virtuous. In fact, the star has shared an experience from her past that’s actually really refreshing to hear and super important.
Sitting down ABC News’s Popcorn With Peter Travers, Anne Hathaway spoke about how she felt that she herself had been misogynistic and sexist when it came to working with female directors in the movie business.
The star was asked by host Peter Travers about which movie set she had learned the most on. Rather than discuss the nuances of acting with Meryl Streep or the difficulty of singing live in Les Miserables, Hathaway spoke about her experiences shooting romantic drama One Day.
The movie was directed by female Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig, and this was something that, Hathaway admits, she struggled with.
“I really regret not trusting her more easily. And I am to this day scared that the reason I didn’t trust her the way I trust some of the other directors I work with is because she’s a woman,” she admitted.
Continuing, the actor said that she was scared that she had treated her with internalized misogyny.
"I’m scared that I didn’t give her everything that she needed or . . . I was resisting her on some level," she said. "It’s something that I’ve thought a lot about in terms of when I get scripts to be directed by women.
This experience, she said, wasn’t just limited to working with Scherfig. In fact, Hathaway revealed that it was something that she found herself doing whenever she received a script by a woman or saw that a female director was attached to a project; she automatically looked down on it, even though she was actively seeking out projects helmed by women.
“When I get a script, when I see a first film directed by a woman, I have in the past focused on what was wrong with it,” Hathaway confessed. “And when I see a film . . . directed by a man, I focus on what’s right with it . . . I can only acknowledge that I’ve done that and I don’t want to do that anymore.”
While, clearly, Anne Hathaway has addressed this internalized misogyny and has moved forward and learned from her mistakes, this can’t have been an easy subject to discuss and we totally applaud her for raising it. It’s something that we don’t necessarily hear too much about, but it obviously something that affects us all.
Thank you so much Anne. #GirlPower!
