Carey Mulligan Gets Honest About Feminism

It's arguably the most feminist film of the year. Suffragette , starring Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep, is about a group of working class women who joined the suffragette movement in 1912, and ultimately changed the trajectory of women's rights forever. And while this film takes place more than a hundred years in the past, its topic, according to new mother Mulligan, is extremely relevant today. "What struck me is how so many of the issues they faced in 1912 women still face today," the 30-year-old says.

"Women had little access to education. We still have that problem now. Sexual violence, that's still happening now — domestic violence. There were no women in Parliament. Now, there's only 22 percent women. So, you know, there are so many issues. Although we feel like we've come so far in the western world, so many other parts of the world are so far behind."

While all of the issues the film addresses are topical for anyone in any stage of life, they are especially important to Mulligan now, who just had her first child, a girl, with husband Marcus Mumford. "Had I had a boy or a girl, it's sort of... What I love about the film is that my character has a son," she says. "An easy choice would have been for her to have a daughter, and then all her choices would have been made because she knew was going to make a better life for her daughter. But she makes those choices because she wants to build a better society for her son. That message, that feminism — or equality — isn't just for girls. It should be everyone's issue."

See Suffragette in theaters October 23. Watch the trailer below: