Justin Trudeau: I'm A Feminist

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Justin Trudeau: When I Say I’m A Feminist, Twitter Freaks Out - The Canadian Prime Minister by day and casanova by night, Justin Trudeau, who from the start of his reign garnered a whirlwind of heat for his progressive views on marijuana legalization, women being people, and apparent fuckability, recently said at a UN meeting that while he considers it a no-brainer to openly call himself a feminist the Twitter stratosphere still freaks out every time.

During his short time in office, Trudeau has already received a lot of attention both negative and positive for his gender-balanced cabinet, active welcoming of Syrian refugees, and blooming bromance with Barack Obama. And yet, even though people already have a feel for “his deal,” the 44-year-old ex-English teacher still begs the question, “Why, every time I say I’m a feminist, does the Twitterverse explode?”

I am a feminist. I’m proud to be a feminist. #upfordebate

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) September 21, 2015

Remarking that at this point gender-balance in politics should be an obvious focus for all leaders, Trudeau said:

“Any world leaders who tell me ‘I’d love to, I just can’t do that with the current configuration of our parliament or of my party’, I say: ‘Well, what are you doing to change that configuration and draw out those extraordinary women who can be leaders that we need?’”
He added that the backlash and fear of the word “feminist” largely marks a generational divide, with older leaders still viewing it as a divisive movement while younger generations view it as mainstream.

“For my generation and younger, it’s all sort of a ‘duh’,” He said, “The fact that it gets such a reaction from the powers and the authority structure that surrounds us really shows how much work we still have to do.”

His focus on gender issues expands beyond the largely talked about issue of equal pay, including investigations into the widespread issue of missing and kidnapped Indigenous women.