Emma Watson

HeForShe
UN campaign to end gender inequality

an invitation from UN Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson

Photo: Emma Watson, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador (centre) greets Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon prior to an event to unveil the HeForShe pilot initiative. Also present is Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women. UN photo.

• Last fall, British actor Emma Watson launched the United Nations campaign, HeForShe, a solidarity movement for gender equality that brings together one half of humanity in support of the other half of humanity for the benefit of all. The HeForShe initiative aims to get men and boys to pledge to join the feminist fight for gender equality. As a Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women, Emma Watson gave a smart, important and moving speech about gender inequality and how to fight it. In her speech, Watson made the very important point that, in order for gender equality to be achieved, harmful and destructive stereotypes and expectations about masculinity must change. The full transcript of her speech is below.

Sign on to the UN’s HeForShe commitment at www.heforshe.org “Gender equality is not only a women’s issue, it is a human rights issue that requires my participation. I commit to take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls.”

Today, we are launching a campaign called HeForShe. I am reaching out to you because we need your help. We want to end gender inequality and to do this we need everyone involved. This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN. We want to try to mobilize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for change. And we don’t just want to talk about it. We want to try and make sure it’s tangible.

I was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women six months ago and the more I spoke about feminism, the more I realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.

Emma Watson
Emma Watson made her first appearance as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series at 11 years of age.

For the record, feminism by definition is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of political, economic and social equality of the sexes.

I started questioning gender-based assumptions a long time ago. When I was eight, I was confused [about] being called bossy because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents – but the boys were not; at 14, I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media; at 15, my girlfriends started dropping out of sports teams because they didn’t want to appear muscly; at 18, my male friends were unable to express their feelings.

I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists. Apparently, I’m among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating and anti-men. Unattractive, even.

Why has the word become such an uncomfortable one? I am from Britain and I think it is right I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decisions that will affect my life. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men.

But, sadly, I can say there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to see these rights. No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality. These rights, I consider to be human rights, but I am one of the lucky ones.

My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn’t love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn’t assume I would go less far because I might give birth to a child one day. These influences were the ‘gender equality ambassadors’ that made me who I am today. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists that are changing the world today. We need more of those.

And if you still hate the word, it is not the word that is important. It’s the idea and the ambition behind it because not all women have received the same rights I have. In fact, statistically, very few have.

In 1997, Hillary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women’s rights. Sadly, many of the things she wanted to change are still true today. But what stood out for me the most was that less than 30% of the 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?

Men, I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too. Because, to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society, despite my need of his presence as a child as much as my mother’s. I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help for fear it would make them less of a man. In fact, in the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20 and 49, eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality, either.

We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see that they are and when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence. If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted, women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.

Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong. It is time we all perceive gender on a spectrum, instead of two sets of opposing ideals. If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are, we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom.

I want men to take up this mantle so their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice, but also so their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too – to reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so to be a more true and complete version of themselves.

You might be thinking, “Who is this Harry Potter girl and what is she doing speaking at the UN?” And it’s a really good question. I’ve been asking myself the same thing.

All I know is that I care about this problem and I want to make it better. And having seen what I’ve seen, given the chance, I feel it is my responsibility to say something.

Statesman Edmund Burke said, “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.”

In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt, I told myself firmly, “If not me, who? If not now, when?” If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you, I hope those words will be helpful. Because the reality is that if we do nothing, it will take 75 years – or for me to be nearly 100 – before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work; 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates, it won’t be until 2086 that all rural African girls can have a secondary education.

If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier and for this, I applaud you. We are struggling for a uniting word, but the good news is we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I invite you to step forward, to be seen and to ask yourself, “If not me, who? If not now, when?”

Thank you very, very much.

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