Emma Watson's speech should be historical. It should be applauded, lauded with praise and bottled, shaken and served to anyone who dares to criticise it and belittle the message the #heforshe campaign is promoting.
If you're not aware of the current feminist storm sweeping the world at the moment (where the eff have you been?), female actors and musicians are leading the 'fight' in what is one of the most important gender equality debates for a long time; it is massively in the public sector and I agree with the goal, I agree that the famous should use their public platform for speaking out that women should have the same social, political and economic rights as men - but I can't quuuuuuuuuite take that seriously when you then see these same people writhing naked for sales in their music videos - 'Yonce, Miley, I'm looking at you. I studied 'Feminism within the Media' at uni so I am au fait with the male gaze, guys ('BUT IF WE CONTROL OUR BODIES AND USE IT THE WAY WE WANT TO THEN WE'RE NOT BEING EXPLOITED!') Ahem, feminism ain't just 'bout that.
Bring in Ms Watson - what I agreed with most was the idea that women just talking about women's rights won't change anything - no matter if your group of feminists start off with a room of 10 attendees and you end up making tea for 80, nothing will change because the people involved in that room are all of the same sex...we KNOW things need to change, it's the other ones, the men folk who need to realise it too as the thing is, they'll benefit - we ALL benefit.
"We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see that they are, and that 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."
Yes, I think I am a feminist.
If you're not aware of the current feminist storm sweeping the world at the moment (where the eff have you been?), female actors and musicians are leading the 'fight' in what is one of the most important gender equality debates for a long time; it is massively in the public sector and I agree with the goal, I agree that the famous should use their public platform for speaking out that women should have the same social, political and economic rights as men - but I can't quuuuuuuuuite take that seriously when you then see these same people writhing naked for sales in their music videos - 'Yonce, Miley, I'm looking at you. I studied 'Feminism within the Media' at uni so I am au fait with the male gaze, guys ('BUT IF WE CONTROL OUR BODIES AND USE IT THE WAY WE WANT TO THEN WE'RE NOT BEING EXPLOITED!') Ahem, feminism ain't just 'bout that.
Bring in Ms Watson - what I agreed with most was the idea that women just talking about women's rights won't change anything - no matter if your group of feminists start off with a room of 10 attendees and you end up making tea for 80, nothing will change because the people involved in that room are all of the same sex...we KNOW things need to change, it's the other ones, the men folk who need to realise it too as the thing is, they'll benefit - we ALL benefit.
"We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see that they are, and that 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."
Emma's speech as UN Ambassador is one of the best descriptions I've seen of what
feminism means in the modern age and I hope that this message has the
impact that it rightly deserves. It's one girl's speech but millions of people's
rights so I urge you to watch the
speech, read
the speech; to pass on this information to the men in your life and ask them to pledge,
for the sake of human rights for everyone. At the time of writing, only 23,570 of the 30,515,530 male population of the UK has pledged, and we can definitely do better than that.
http://www.heforshe.orgYes, I think I am a feminist.
No comments
Post a Comment