If you haven’t already heard, Emma Watson is the new Goodwill Ambassador for United Nations Women. Being a huge fan of both Emma Watson and the U.N. myself, you can only imagine how stoked I was to hear about this collaboration. Watson’s role as the Goodwill Ambassador is working on her organization, HeForShe. The purpose of HeForShe is to achieve gender equality. Watson is calling on not just women to participate in this movement, but for men to raise their voices as well. I was truly blown away by Watson’s speech at the United Nations. Many times, feminism is looked at as a bad thing. She states in her speech, “Feminism, by definition, is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” By clarifying that feminism is not “man hating,” as she states she has heard the word being used synonymously with, Watson shows us that gender equality needs to be supported by males and females alike.
Watson further states that it is not just women who suffer from gender equality, but men as well. It is seen in our society as being unmanly to show emotion, it is seen as less important for a man to be involved in his family’s life as much as a woman is, and unmanly for a male to not be successful in business like he “should” be. She says, “We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see that they are.” I think that her message is very strong because she is bringing up the major issue that is rarely addressed: that for gender equality to be successful, both women and men must be actively involved in its progress. The patriarchal society that we live in today can make it very hard for change, but it is people like Emma Watson and organizations like United Nations Women that will bring the real change in the world that we so desperately need.