Shonda Rhimes and Jenji Kohan Honored, Talk Feminism At the Global Women’s Rights Awards

Olivia Pope. Annalise Keating. Sophia Burset. Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren. Scandal showrunner Shonda Rhimes and Orange Is the New Black showrunner Jenji Kohan are in the business of creating nuanced female characters, which is why they were recently honored by the Feminist Majority Foundation at the 10th annual Global Women’s Rights Awards.

There, Rhimes spoke about the importance of feminism. As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Rhimes talked about her assistant, in whom she sees the feminist struggle personified:

Rhimes said that her assistant once expressed the desire to be a man for a day, just to know how it feels “to have all of that.”

“My assistant wants to walk through the world just for a day without some guy hitting on her when she runs to Starbucks to get me coffee,” Rhimes said. “She wants to not be called ‘cute’ by the security guard. She wants to not be told that she should be a model. She wants to not see the look of surprise on someone’s face when she tells them where she went to college. She wants her boobs to no longer be a topic of conversation. She wants to no longer make 70 cents on the dollar. She wants to not have old men legislate her vagina’s rights. She wants to not know that a glass ceiling ever existed. She wants to not believe that having a baby would end her career. She wants everything in the world to be made for her, be about her and speak mostly to her. Because that’s how it is for men.”

Rhimes called the implications of her assistant’s wish terrifying, saying, “We don’t have time to be terrified.” She explained, “I don’t even want men wishing they could be women. I just want those words ‘all of that,’ to apply to all of us.”

So do we, Shonda. So do we.

(Image via Disney/ABC Television Group on Flickr)

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Teresa Jusino

Teresa Jusino (she/her) is a native New Yorker and a proud Puerto Rican, Jewish, bisexual woman with ADHD. She's been writing professionally since 2010 and was a former TMS assistant editor from 2015-18. Now, she's back as a contributing writer. When not writing about pop culture, she's writing screenplays and is the creator of your future favorite genre show. Teresa lives in L.A. with her brilliant wife. Her other great loves include: Star Trek, The Last of Us, anything by Brian K. Vaughan, and her Level 5 android Paladin named Lal.

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