This post has been corrected.
This post has been corrected.
Identifying as a feminist may be more and more commonplace if you’re a millennial or Taylor Swift, but it’s still pretty rare to see politicians describe themselves thus. But Canada’s newly elected prime minister, 43-year-old Justin Trudeau, doesn’t seem to have that problem.
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In an interview, co-sponsored by the Toronto Star, which aired on Monday night before the election (Oct. 18), Trudeau was asked by journalist Francine Pelletier if he would describe himself as a feminist.
“There seems to be a lot of anger,” Pelletier asked, “not just at women, but at feminism and feminists. Would you describe yourself as a feminist?”
“Yes. Yes, I am a feminist,” said Trudeau. “I’m proud to be a feminist.” He went on to tell Pelletier that his mother raised him to be that way, and that his father, the popular two-time former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, “was a different generation, but he raised me to respect and defend everyone’s rights, and I deeply grounded my own identity in that.”
Trudeau added that the public should pay more attention to developments in popular culture like Gamergate—a long-running controversy about sexism and violence toward women in video game culture.
“The things we see online,” he said, “whether it is issues like gamergate or video games misogyny in popular culture, it is something that we need to stand clearly against.”
(Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly listed Trudeau’s age. He is 43.)
