“Self-partnered” might not be a relationship status on Facebook, but it’s the term that Emma Watson prefers to use in place of “single,” the actress and activist told British Vogue in a recent interview.
The “Harry Potter” and “Beauty and the Beast” actress turns 30 in April, and she talked to British Vogue about the pressures she feels as the milestone approaches.
“I never believed the whole ‘I’m happy single’ spiel,” Watson said in the interview. “I was like, ‘This is totally spiel.’ It took me a long time, but I’m very happy (being single). I call it being self-partnered.”
Watson said she feels “so stressed and anxious” about turning 30, which she credits to “subliminal messaging” from society.
“If you have not built a home, if you do not have a husband, if you do not have a baby, and you are turning 30, and you’re not in some incredibly secure, stable place in your career, or you’re still figuring things out. … There’s just this incredible amount of anxiety,” Watson told British Vogue.
Apart from her acting career, Watson has been a vocal activist for women’s rights. She was named a goodwill ambassador for U.N. Women in 2014, and was part of an advisory group at this year’s G7 summit that urged for more laws to empower women, according to Reuters.
Watson told British Vogue that her feminism influenced her latest acting role as Meg March in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming adaptation of “Little Women.”
“With Meg’s character, her way of being a feminist is making the choice — because that’s really, for me anyway, what feminism is about,” Watson said in the interview. “Her choice is that she wants to be a full-time mother and wife. To Jo, being married is really some sort of prison sentence. But Meg says, ‘You know, I love him and I’m really happy and this is what I want. And just because my dreams are different from yours, it doesn’t mean they’re unimportant.’”