• I’m so tired of the argument that teenagers can’t understand something just because they’re young… Teens my age do have opinions and we are speaking out, which I think is so cool. By continuing to talk about issues that are important to us, we’re showing we do know what we’re talking about—and we’re willing to foster change. - Rowan Blanchard for Girl’s Life Magazine (April 2016)

• I’d like all stereotypes to be debunked but I really want to abolish this idea that there’s one perfect body or there’s one perfect woman or there’s one perfect hair type or whatever. I think that’s definitely something we made a point of when choosing all the women. We wanted to make sure that they all represented different things. There’s a very European beauty standard that a lot of women base their beauty on and so when doing this, we wanted to make sure it celebrated all types of beauty and not just one stereotyped version.

• When I was younger, I had a bunch of adults telling me ‘You can’t do this; you can’t do that. Be careful.’ I was always receiving this kind of information and I took it. I put a lot of pressure on myself early in my life, like ‘You have to be perfect; you can’t do anything.’ You can’t show any emotion and speak up. I realized that I have to live my life for myself. But, more and more, if I mess up with one thing, I can kind of look back on it and just be like, ‘All right, well, that was a nice try, and at least you tried.’ - Rowan Blanchard, Interview Magazine

• When I first called myself a feminist, it was very simple to me, it was like, ‘I believe in equality, I’m a feminist,’ and then I encountered people who said they were not feminists, which was confusing. Looking at it from a different perspective, I was like ‘What is this person’s race?’ Most of the time they were people of color, and then you look at things and you’re like, ‘Feminism hasn’t been that inclusive for people of color, so if I was a woman of color—which I’m not—then maybe I wouldn’t be so keen on feminism if it wasn’t supportive of me.’ - Rowan Blanchard

• I find that I’ll be talking to a room of grown men and somebody will say something that I don’t agree with, but I almost shut down my opinion really quickly because I think “Oh, he’s a man, I just have to be really careful with that.” And I feel like there’s this male anger complex that women are almost submissive to, in order to allow that person more room.

• Women tend to gravitate towards questions of ‘Am I beautiful?’ and ‘Am I enough?’ because that is what we have been taught — to evaluate our own beauty.

• “I feel like we live in a world that, often, will kind of try and shut teenagers up or put them aside. I feel like my thoughts and opinions have always been very open and they’ve always been very allowed, and I definitely want to encourage other teens to do the same and form their own opinions even if they are the ones I disagree with.”

• I’m happy to talk about what I’m wearing. It’s cool to spotlight a new designer on the runway, and to contribute to the fashion world that I love. It’s a very special thing I get to do, but don’t make my story, and who I am, be my dress, while my male co-star’s story is how he picks scripts and gets inspired. Why not ask me that, too? Ask me work questions, too! Ask me about my life!

• This was the first year that I learned how powerful it is to be by yourself. Not necessarily in a relationship sense, but to be by myself and be content. I became more forgiving with my own actions. I feel more connected to myself as a person knowing that I will never have it all figured out and that’s for the better. I developed camaraderie of versions of myself that I can trust to take care of me when I feel thrown off, which is often. I think I learned, and am still re-learning, that in order to actually spend the rest of your life with yourself contently, you must truthfully fall in love with yourself.

• Often times the roles of female actresses are muted and stereotypical, especially for women of color. And as a teen actress, I want to play teens who are layered and intricate and complicated. I don’t want to play roles that make us look dumb and annoying because I know teens and 20,000 of us are intelligent and are here to change the world. The point is, we can choose the language we use, we can question the media that surround us, we can take advantage of the fact that we have a voice and let it be heard loud and clear, we can create a world where you are safe to be yourself. Feminism is a belief that does just that. I am a feminist because I believe there should not currently be 82 million girls out of school. Because I believe boys should not have to suppress their emotions because of fear of being polarized by the public and their peers… Because I believe that gender and race should not be boxes that should keep us from having the same equal opportunities.

• Right now, I’ve been trying to really educate myself about representation, in the media and everywhere. I want to do a story about racism [on Girl Meets World]. And I’m going to ask them about introducing lesbian, gay and trans characters next season. It’s so important to make sure everyone is represented.

• Unfortunately, a lot of white feminists forget that feminism means equality. It means equality for trans women and equality for black women. Even when people make comments like ‘Boys don’t have to worry about the way they dress’ – actually, Trayvon Martin was killed because he had a hoodie on. I think it’s about acknowledging your privilege and looking at how you can help other people. Feminism can seem like this thing that polarizes people because the version of feminism that we most often see does polarize people. I think it all comes down to recognizing your privilege and recognizing how to help others. So obviously a white man is more privileged than I am, but I am still more privileged than somebody else.