Angelina Jolie has penned a letter about women’s rights, the advancements in gender equality and what else can be done.
Writing for Harper’s Bazaar’s 150-anniversary issue, Jolie also touches upon saving the environment.
She wrote, “As a woman, for much of the 19 century in most Western countries, you couldn’t go to university, and entire professions, like medicine, science, and law, were closed to you.”
“You couldn’t vote and wouldn’t win that right in many countries for more than half a century.”
“So I imagine that if that reader of Bazaar could see us now, she would be astonished.”
“And since she probably argued for women’s rights in her lifetime, I imagine she’d be thankful.”
“But I also wonder what that 19 century woman would make of the inequality that still exists for tens of millions of women and girls around the world – such as the ones who have to go to work instead of school because they support their families…”
“Or the women who will still die young because they have little or no access to health care.”
“Would she think that we have done enough for them?”
She continued, “I read recently that the World Economic Forum predicted that it will take 83 years for the gaps in rights and opportunities between women and men to close in all countries.”
“This is not about progress for women at the expense of men, but about finding an equal balance that benefits everyone.”
“Eighty-three years seems far longer than anyone, man or woman, would ever hope for or imagine.”
Concluding the letter, Jolie said, “What we do, each in our own small way, matters.”
“The hopeful thought is that it is in our hands.”
“Over the next 150 years, technology is going to give us more and better means of communicating, fighting poverty, defending human rights, and caring for the environment.”
“But it is what we choose to do with the freedom we have that will make all the difference.”
“If my life experience has taught me anything, it is that what you stand for, and what you choose to stand against, is what defines you.”
“As the San people say, “You are never lost if you can see your path to the horizon.”
Her letter comes just days after the actress alleged that she was a target of film producer, Harvey Weinstein.
In an email, Jolie wrote, “I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did.”
“This behaviour towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable.”
Weinstein is currently amidst an investigation for numerous accounts of sexual harassment.
Allegations against Weinstein include asking a British journalist to have a bath with him at his hotel when she arrived for a business meeting, and cornering a former Fox News reporter in the basement of a restaurant and proceeding to masturbate in front of her.
After being criticised in the press for their silence over three decades of allegations, Hollywood stars are beginning to speak out against Harvey Weinstein.
