Rowan Blanchard: 16-Year-Old Social Media Activist, Humanitarian, Feminist, and Artist
How a 16-Year-Old and Her Instagram Taught Me (A 19-Year-Old) How to Become the Strongest Version of Myself
Picture yourself at sixteen years old. What were you doing? Who were you interacting with? What were you talking about? What did you like to do in your spare time? What made you angry? Perhaps you were shopping with your friends, talking about how stupid that science project was. Or maybe you were walking to school with your brother, chatting about how much you hate the ham sandwiches your mom packed you. Maybe even editing a selfie on Instagram and thinking of which hashtags to add on in the caption (depending on when you were born). Pretty average, right?
This was me at sixteen. I was in grade ten. I edited my Instagram selfies to get rid of my cystic acne and my ‘fat’ arms. I made sure to never post a selfie without a filter. I refreshed every few seconds to see who liked my post and who commented. But looking back to my diary from that year, all I wrote about was feminism, activism, and speaking out for myself. Although, I didn’t DARE post anything related to feminism or activism, even though it was something I was very much interested in. Why didn’t I post anything remotely related to activism? Because of the backlash. I had seen my friends post about feminism and I had seen the ‘popular’ boys from my grade comment calling my friends “weak” or “boring”. I wish I had known about Rowan Blanchard when I was sixteen.
Rowan Blanchard is a sixteen-year-old activist, feminist, actor, artist, humanitarian, writer (I could go on…), whose online following sits at just under 6 million. Blanchard came to her fame through her Disney Channel show, Girl Meets World, which just recently ended in 2017. And it’s no secret that she has taken these vast online platforms by the reins and made them a megaphone for those who cannot be heard.
Rowan’s social media accounts, particularly her Twitter and Instagram accounts, are littered with posts that outline social and economic issues such as the Syrian civil war, #BLM movement, gun control and violence, white privilege, mental health, and intersectional feminism, to name a few. She also talks a great deal about self-love and sexuality, and how young women are taught to hide love for themselves and their own creations. Rowan avidly spreads her belief that young people have the power and the right to have a voice in today’s world, no matter how ‘adult’ the issue may be deemed. As stated in the Instagram post above “… so often I am the youngest person in the room, typically having my activism infantilized as something really “cute” or unique to my age and myself, when really I’ve learned everything I know about activism from other young people. My generation is really, truly fucking incredible”, Blanchard is passionate about spreading the word that activism and having a voice isn’t something that you come of age to obtain. You can start learning and speaking out at any age.
Rowan’s 2017 interview with NET-A-PORTER outlines her social media following and how she believes they interact with her activism. She states that it is her goal to get her following to feel empowered with her, “… if I can post about a protest and get more people to go out protesting, I feel like I’ve achieved something”. She knows that social media is not a place to force her views and beliefs on other people. As she states in an interview with i-D Magazine, “You never want to tell people what to believe, just influence them. It’s a fine line.”
Blanchard also recently just published a book titled Still Here, in February of this year. The first page, after the prologue, is a handwritten note from Rowan herself stating “I AM NOT TOO YOUNG TO KNOW A LIE”.
It’s a bold statement that rings true and maybe even pain for those who have tried to speak up for what they believe in but have been labeled too young to understand, too young to make a change, too young to know a lie. As mentioned, Rowan consistently reiterates that young people have a voice that deserves to be heard by those older than us, more powerful than us. In an interview with BUILD Series, Blanchard notes that some of the feedback she received about Still Here was that it was good yet very sad. She goes on to explain that indeed the book is sad, but she is aiming for young people to look at that sadness and look at their own sadness and learn to be okay with it.
Rowan was interviewed by Mic in 2015, when she was 15 years old, about social media and the activist revolution. She spoke about feminist activism and the silencing of women, “Society was telling them if that if you speak out you’re going to be labeled, like, this feminist crazy person, difficult, difficult to work with — and that, in itself, is very sexist. All these female actresses are literally labeled difficult to work with because, God forbid, they have an opinion.” Rowan also outlines her idea of “white feminism” and how we, as an online and real-world community, can increase intersectional feminism, as that is the only true form of feminism.
Blanchard actually wrote a short essay in 2015 on “white feminism” and what it means to her, originally posted on her Tumblr account and reposted to her Instagram account. “Intersectional feminism” or “intersectionality” as a theory was first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Rowan quotes Crenshaw in her essay, “The view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity”, and then outlines that trans-women and black women have recently been the big victims lately. Rowan introduced many young people to the importance of being intersectional with your feminism through her Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. She directly states that white (cis-gendered) women experience inequality and sexism differently than, for example, a black woman would. It really is as simple as that. Explaining that you cannot take all female-identified people and put them into one category. They are separate variables that all fall under the intersectional umbrella. She finishes off her essay by saying “To only acknowledge feminism from a one sided view when the literal DEFINITION is the equality of the sexes is not feminism at all. We need to be talking about this more. Discussion leads to change.”
This Instagram post (above) is an example of Rowan’s push for intersectional feminism. Her consistent conversation about gender non-conforming and trans people to be included in the fight for rights is what helps us move towards a more all-inclusive, accepting community. Marching only for cis-gendered, white-only women is a prime example as to an oppressive means of activism and Rowan isn’t ever afraid to point this out.
Below are a few examples of Blanchards’s online activist posts.
Although her social media platforms are all brimming with activist and feminist posts, Rowan- believe it or not- is also a teenage girl. As she believes, there is absolutely no shame in appreciating yourself, your creative works, and posting selfies once in a while. Hell, maybe even twice or three times in one day. Loving yourself, taking care of yourself, accepting your sadness and insecurities, and self-care all come hand-in-hand with thorough activism.
Rowan has taken these online social media platforms and created a space for youth to make a difference. As she states in an interview with Elle, “Teenagers have a legitimate voice. We deserve to have a seat at the table and a place in the conversation. We’re not exempt from politics and social movements; we’re affected by them.” I am so thankful that there are creative, strong, loud, unforgiving women like Rowan Blanchard present in the online and offline community and I truly hope that if I have a child one day, they will have their own Rowan Blanchard to inspire and guide them through aspects of life in ways that I or others cannot.
Instagram: @emmamackattack
Twitter: @emmamacklin_
