Emma Watson came into our lives as the extraordinary muggle witch through the Harry Potter movie series but that little ginger-haired girl who we all grew to adore has grown up to be someone we respect. The Actress as well as UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador delivered a speech on 20th of September 2014 at the UN Headquarters, New York launching a new campaign which goes by the name of ‘HeforShe’.
The idea behind the campaign is quite simple – let women and men be treated equally: socially, politically and economically. If we think about it, feminism is the word that we should be using here but feminism has, sadly, turned into a slang used for women who are too aggressive, isolated and most importantly, hate men.
In an attempt to explain the campaign Emma has first cleared the fact that feminism does not mean hating men, it is just a fight for freedom and equality, which needs to be fought by both men and women for the sake of humanity as a whole.
“In 1997, Hilary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women’s rights. Sadly many of the things she wanted to change are still a reality today. But what stood out for me the most was that less than 30 percent of her audience was male.
How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?” Watson said, formally inviting all men to treat Gender Equality as their issue too, to have their sisters and mothers free from prejudices but also to allow their sons to be vulnerable and human.
As a human being, it pains me to mention that a day after this speech Emma Watson was attacked anonymously on the internet where there was a five day countdown to make her nude pictures public online. However, no such thing has happened but it is a shameful act on our part as a society.
Despite that, we all should take heed of Emma’s speech and stand together for women, for men, for humanity.
#HeForShe
For more details, log on to: www.heforshe.org
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