Everyone knows Emma Watson as the brightest witch of her age in her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series, but now fans everywhere are seeing her in a new role: the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations. Watson, a recent graduate of Brown University, is working with the U.N Women, an organization who aim to aid in the fight for gender equality around the globe.
This past Saturday, Watson gave a very emotional speech on the ideas of feminism, ending gender inequality and “galvanizing as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for change”. She touched on the idea that feminism has become a negative term that women choose to disassociate with when in reality, women should be proud to call themselves a feminist. Watson herself states “I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating.” She goes on to further state that feminism itself is the belief in equal rights and opportunities for men and women. Nowhere in the definition of the word does it say feminists hate men. She urges women to be strong, proud and to fight for the rights they deserve.
Watson then takes her ideas a step further by formally inviting men everywhere to become involved in the fight for gender equality, which is something that really hasn’t been done before. In past speeches on gender equality the target audience was women- but how are women expected to achieve gender equality with only half the world fighting for it? In order to change something in this world, everyone needs to be involved and making the effort. Watson proves this when she gives statistics proving that women aren’t the only ones who suffer from gender inequality, men do too.
The entire basis of her amazing speech at the U.N Headquarters was the launch of the new campaign HeForShe. The purpose of the HeForShe campaign is to get men involved in the fight for gender equality. The campaign is “a solidarity movement for gender equality that brings together one half of humanity in support of the other of humanity, for the entirety of humanity.” This means that in order to end gender inequality, everyone needs to be involved. Violence and inequality against women and girls is a problem all over the globe. In order for this to stop everyone needs to work together, which is a huge part of the HeForShe campaign.
After her speech at the U.N, Watson received major support from huge celebs like Matt Damon, Harry Styles, Tom Hiddleston, her Noah co-star, Douglas Booth and even the president of the United States, Barak Obama. On top of that, Instagram and Twitter were full of supporters from all over the world under the hashtag #HeForShe. Millions of people not only heard what Emma Watson had to say, but truly listened and now want to help put an end to gender inequality.
For more information and to take the pledge to end gender inequality around the world, go to www.heforshe.org.
Sources: