Angelina Jolie has three daughters — Zahara, 14, Shiloh, 13 and Vivienne, 11 — and like many moms, she has plenty of advice to share.
In a new essay for ELLE, Jolie mused on the ways that women have been decried as “wicked” throughout history, including during the Salem witch trials in America and the witch hunts that ran throughout Europe. She explained that “wicked” women are, in fact, just strong women, and shared some advice she tries to impart on her daughters.
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“I often tell my daughters that the most important thing they can do is to develop their minds,” she wrote. “You can always put on a pretty dress, but it doesn’t matter what you wear on the outside if your mind isn’t strong. There is nothing more attractive—you might even say enchanting—than a woman with an independent will and her own opinions.”
Jolie further wrote that women who rebelled against the norm “have been labeled as unnatural, weird, wicked, and dangerous,” something that she wrote still exists today. She named women who run for office in democratic countries as an example of this phenomenon as well as her own self, with the actress noting that if she were a citizen in some of the countries she travels to, she would likely be jailed or in serious danger.
“Women could be accused of witchcraft for having an independent sex life, for speaking their mind on politics or religion, or for dressing differently,” she wrote. “Had I lived in earlier times, I could have been burnt at the stake many times over for simply being myself.”
Towards the end of her piece, Jolie discussed the importance of finding one’s life’s purpose, writing that women can often go “offtrack” in this pursuit “because our instinct is to nurture or to adjust ourselves to society’s expectations.”
“It can be hard to take the time to ask ourselves who we truly want to be—not what we think other people will approve of or accept, but who we really are,” she shared. “But when you listen to yourself, you can make the choice to step forward and learn and change.”
The humanitarian added that she discovered her own life’s purpose during a trip to Africa.
“I remember when that moment first came for me. I was in my twenties, meeting refugees in Sierra Leone during the closing stages of a brutal civil war,” she recalled. “I understood for the first time the level of violence that exists in the world, and the reality of life for the millions of people affected by conflict and displacement. And I discovered my life’s work and purpose.”
Photo Credit: Getty / Axelle/Bauer-Griffin
