Ryan Gosling Opens Up About Raising His Daughter: Feminism Is 'Important to Me'

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Ryan Gosling is opening up for the first time about what it's like being a new father to his baby girl Esmeralda.

In a new interview with Sunday Style, the 34-year-old actor talks about accidentally becoming the poster boy for feminism and how it relates to raising his now 8-month-old daughter. Gosling, the subject of countless blogs and memes devoted to him -- Feminist Ryan Gosling Tumblr and the Hey Girl meme just to name a few -- says "there are certainly worse things you can be a part of."

WATCH: Ryan Gosling Eats His Cereal in Touching Tribute to Meme Creator

"I mean, look, I have very strong female characters in my life," he explains. "I grew up with strong women and the amount of them grows exponentially as time goes on, in my world. And that's my reality. So, I just tend to gravitate towards stories with strong female characters. ... I didn't make those [memes], you know? It's not by design."

Still, he can't ignore the fact that it definitely affects his little girl with girlfriend Eva Mendes, 41.

"But I do have a little girl now and it's important to me," he says. "These things are becoming… not more important to me, but more important in general, I think. There are lots of great women out there who I really admire: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, the Broad City girls [Abbi Abrams and Ilana Wexler], Lena Dunham and Kathryn Bigelow. I don't know, it just seems like it's happening."


The
Notebook actor also surprisingly says he definitely wasn't considered a heartthrob growing up.

"Yeah, growing up, I never played sports," he recalls. "And I guess, growing up, the guys girls liked were jocks or, you know, that sort of thing, and because I never did that; I was in dance class and things like that. Also, I just grew up around a lot of girls."

"I was [involved] in a lot of their conversations about guys and I found it frustrating because I felt like I must not be a threat if they're being so open in front of me," he shares. "That used to bother me [laughs]. Yeah, that bothered me. I didn't like that."

Oh, how times have certainly changed!

WATCH: Ryan Gosling Defends Eva Mendes' 'Sweatpants' Comment, Eva 'Feels Terrible'

Check out the usually super-hot Gosling sporting a questionable new look for his film, The Big Short, in the video below!