Beautiful, charming, classy and intelligent are words commonly used to describe Emma Watson. From the cover of Cosmopolitan to Buzzfeed, the Harry Potter star has made a name for herself outside of Hermione. She’s become a fashion icon, ivy-league graduate, and celebrity role model. Yet most people wouldn’t identify her first and foremost as a feminist.
The stigma of the “f-word” word has prevented most people from understanding the true definition of feminism, (the advocacy of women and men’s rights based on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality) and instead reduced it to stereotypes. Angry. Ugly, and worst of all man-hating are the words customarily associated with feminism, even though many men identify as feminists.
It isn’t a word that comes to mind when thinking of Emma Watson because it’s incongruent with most people’s ideas on what a feminist looks and acts like. This is only one of the reasons why she is the perfect spokesperson for HeforShe, a nationwide campaign committed to breaking down the walls of gender segregation by promoting an alliance between men and women to stop discrimination of gender. It focuses not only on how women are treated unjustly, but the blockades men face through gender as well.
It’s not a women’s issue but a humanitarian issue.
The backlash Emma Watson has received, especially the threat to leak “nude” and/or personal photos through her iCloud account that similar stars such as Jennifer Lawrence have experienced, has only reinforced this need for the “battle of sexes” to end. In the end, no one emerges a winner.
Wouldn’t it be nice to not feel hindered to express your emotions? To receive equal pay for the same work regardless of whether you identify as male, female or neither? To like something other than the constricted norms of your gender and not be ostracized for it? To walk home alone at night without the fear of being sexually or physically assaulted? This is the central foundation of the HeforShe movement, because it’s not enough to wait for change to happen. Yes, we’ve made great strides in promoting gender equality, but if it weren’t for our predecessors who devoted themselves to the fight, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We can’t expect egalitarianism to manifest itself into the future. To this day, there is not one country in the world where there is absolute gender equality. As Emma Watson said in her speech, “if not now, when? If not me [delivering this speech], who?”
Here’s a link to the speech Emma Watson gave at the UN conference on September 20th 2014.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Dg226G2Z8&feature=youtu.be