Wow Emma Watson, thanks for speaking so boldly and honestly and for summing up all my opinions on gender equality in 10 minutes.
There was so much true doctrine I was feeling the SPIRIT.
It's probably best just to watch it because she delivers it so darn well but here are some highlights.
...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... I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive." (Okay maybe not that last one in your case, Em)
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 needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s. (YES! Family proclamation anyone?)
I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49; 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 that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.
If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what 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 that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too—reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.
Amen to that sister. If the world could just embrace the true nature of men and women, different yet equal, there would be a lot more balance. I'm so grateful to be a Mormon woman surrounded (generally) by men who understand and respect the identity and role of women. Another reason why we need to share what we know and how we live with others.
Emma Watson's full speech
He For She website
