Robin Wright knows a thing or two about playing strong women. She was introduced to audiences as the Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride, waiting to be rescued by her man. She brought the world to tears as Jenny Curran, the object of Forrest Gump’s unrequited affection. But in her Lady Macbeth-like role as Claire Underwood in House of Cards, she is a self-determined woman for our times.

Robin Wright belongs right in the current discussion of how women are treated in Hollywood.

“We need a revolution, we really do. Thank God gender equality is finally being talked about and making news, but we need a female Che Guevara,” Robin Wright told Britain’s Evening Standard magazine.

Wright’s invoking the image of Che Guevara shouldn’t be taken to ridiculous extremes. Guevara was a revolutionary who inspired many people to overthrow the oppression they lived under at the time. It is doubtful that Robin Wright was extolling the virtues of the Marxism that Guevara espoused.

“It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America,” Wright continued. “It is a man’s world. Most industries are a man’s world. But when you break it down, it’s women [who do the work]. But they don’t necessarily get the credit.”

Just realised that Robin Wright of Claire Underwood fame was Forrest Gump's Jenny. Mind. Blown. #HouseOfCards #ForrestGump

— Matt (@themattmak) July 30, 2015

Wright and other actresses have been in the vanguard of a revival in the feminist effort toward equality in wages and treatment for women across many walks of life.

“I do believe in feminism,” Robing Wright says. “But that is not to deny the biological differences. They [men] are stronger in some ways, we are stronger in some ways. We have better tactical talents than they do in some ways, and they [have better ones] in others, and that is why we are a great balance.”

But one area that Wright is assured that she does just as well as the next man is in directing. She has begun directing episodes of House of Cards, although she waited a while before trying her hand at it.

“It was in the back of my head … one day,” she explained. “But then you think, ‘Yeah, I want to, but I could never…’ And that’s just fear. And a lot of that, I think, was being a female in this industry. I think we are programmed — well, I was; I am not going to speak for the whole gender — I was programmed into thinking, ‘I am going to be lesser; they [men] are going to think that I am lesser.'”

Big CONGRATS to @netflix, MRC, @KevinSpacey @BeauWillimon @michaeljkellyjr & the HOC team!!! xo R pic.twitter.com/SnI2Dr3SJi

— Robin Wright (@RealRobinWright) July 16, 2015