Blanchard in February 2016.Photo: Katie Jones/WWD/REX Shutterstock.Rowan Blanchard is no stranger to girl power. (See: literally everything she does.) But on Friday night at the Vanity Fair& L'Oréal DJ Night Hosted by Hailee Steinfeld, the Girl Meets World actress shared that she was initially afraid to start her network of strong women.
“I think I went through this thing where I was scared to be friends with other women, especially in the business," she told Refinery29. "I feel like there’s a stereotype that people hate each other [in Hollywood], so I believed that." However, she learned quickly that women in the industry are actually really supportive of each other. "It’s really refreshing to have this circle of friends. We’re all doing the same thing and we’re all rooting for each other, which is really nice.”
Blanchard said her feminist ideas are making their way onto her show, too. “The writers are very open to my ideas and have definitely been influenced by them. We did an episode recently, called ‘Girls Meets STEM,’ which is about how there’s lower statistics of girls in science and math because we’re taught to be kind of submissive and let men do work," she said. "I was really proud to do that episode. I was really happy we go to do that.”
When asked what specifically she had suggested to the writers, Blanchard pushed to increase the level of inclusivity. “They’re very aware that — I want to reinforce this so they hear me one more time — I want more representation as far as race and gender and sexuality on the show," she said.
And the franchise does have a history of being more progressive than its contemporaries. She points to her predecessor Danielle Fishel, who played Topanga in the original Boy Meets World and now co-stars with Blanchard, as laying some of the groundwork. “Danielle is like this all-knowing creature who’s amazing to work with and I just love having her. If you look back on Boy Meets World episodes, there’s very strong feminist undertones.”
Someone get Blanchard and Emma Watson together so they can run the world side by side.
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