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Rowan Blanchard Is Quickly Becoming Our Young Feminist Icon

Photo: Matt Baron/REX Shutterstock.
Rowan Blanchard is no stranger to speaking out against injustice. Earlier this month, the 14-year-old railed against the #AllLivesMatter movement, and she's also been an advocate on the subject of intersectional feminism. (Her two cents on that topic, by the way, are brilliant and worth a read.) Blanchard also isn't letting the little things — like being told to smile more — slide. The Girl Meets World actress posted a series of tweets on Sunday directly addressing Instagram users cajoling her to give the camera a grin. "Plz stop telling me to smile on Instagram I'm going insaaannnneeee," she wrote. "I post on my Instagram what I like :) if I want to smile I will!! Nothing more than that. I wish people would stop reading into things," she added. And she didn't stop there. "I don't think people realize how rude and hurtful it can be to just see comments where people say 'Are you depressed?' when depression is a serious and personal thing that affects a ton of people. Funny how people think my Instagram means I'm depressed, yet when people who are actually depressed talk about their depression people make light of it and say that they are 'overreacting,'" she wrote across three additional tweets.
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Of course, Blanchard isn't the first woman to point out that being told to smile all the time is offensive. (For more on that, check out this international art project devoted to combatting gender-based street harassment.) What's more: Other celebs joined her in this instance of the conversation. Amandla Stenberg and Kerry Washington hopped on board the stop-telling-girls-to-smile train by sending their support to Blanchard via Twitter.
Young female celebs using their considerable social media presence for good? Now, that's an agenda we can definitely get behind.

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