Keira Rallies For "Female Stories & Female Voices"

There have been some major rumbles in the entertainment industry about equality when it comes to both race and sex. Jessica Chastain gave an empowering speech about the changes that need to be made in Hollywood at the Critics' Choice Awards, and Reese Witherspoon recently spoke about the need for more "complex, nuanced, interesting" roles for women. The latest happened when Keira Knightley explained her feminist stance on the industry in an interview with the LA Times, saying how everyone needs to band together and really push for more female voices.

"Female stories and female voices are very often missed out on, completely. Very often in every section of culture women are lost; every actress will say the exact same thing to you. We're all looking for these interesting, inspiring, complex creatures … but they're very difficult to find . . . It's got to come from female writers, from female producers, from female directors — they're the ones with the passion to tell stories and go out and get the money. Possibly I should be throwing my hat in that ring. But it means putting the producer's hat on, not just the actor's. Maybe that's something I should do and will do. But I'm very lazy."

Knightley may not be in the trenches currently trying to make movies like this happen — although she played a strong female role in Oscar-nominated film The Imitation Game — but she's trying to find ways to speak about feminism in the media without being laughed at for it. She admitted that it is "very difficult for anyone who models or objectifies their body to talk about feminism," so much so that she stopped bringing it up in interviews frequently in 2011. But she's quick to note that "every woman has a right to say there aren't enough female stories" because there are problems like no equal pay and horrendous domestic abuse problems going on in the world that need to be addressed. "It's incredibly important for media to continue the discussion and really push for it and don't say, 'That's passé. Oh, no, that's a problem of the past,' she concluded.

On that note, the pregnant actress revealed how she is going to raise her children to be feminists as well, no matter the gender of her first born. "I think it's very important to raise boys who are feminists and very important to raise girls who don't expect Prince Charming and allow men to be emotional and weak at points and strong at points," she said. "We're looking for equality and not gender stereotypes."

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