Emma Watson utilizes her fame and broad fanbase as a UN Goodwill Ambassador. Evan Agostini/AP
By Sydney Keen
Many women from our generation grew up reading about and watching Hermione Granger, the fictional, wiry-haired trailblazer of the wizarding-world who led her male counterparts through the nuanced magic and danger of J.K Rowling’s fantastical Hogwarts. Over the past few months, specifically beginning in September of last year, Hermione took on a different role to capture the attention of women and men of all generations. Emma Watson, the actress responsible for the film-portrayal of Hermione in the Harry Potter films, was appointed as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador.
On Sept. 20, 2014, Emma Watson commenced her role in the HeForShe UN campaign for gender equality, with an inaugural speech at the campaign’s launch. This speech, delivered before UN officials and ambassadors from around the world at the UN headquarters in New York, has now garnered over six million views on YouTube. HeForShe aims to galvanize millions of men and boys around the world to become advocates of change in ending the inequality between genders.
The speech addressed global issues of gender inequality. Watson went on to address the harmful misconceptions surrounding feminism and the feminist identity by recounting her experiences, both past and present, and shedding light on the necessity of gender equality.
“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,” Watson said. “For the record, feminism, by definition, is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.”
Today, over 250,000 men and boys from around the globe have taken the pledge on the UN’s HeForShe website to advocate for gender equality. While an overwhelming number of people have been roused to action in solidarity with Watson and the UN campaign, she recently revealed that she was confronted soon after her remarks by adversary action.
March 8 marked another International Women’s Day, a day historically dedicated to the celebration of women around the world. On that day, an interview with Emma Watson was broadcasted on Facebook to further promote the HeForShe campaign. Watson addressed the common misconception that many have about the current state of gender inequality and the all-too-common idea that the movement for gender equality is not urgent.
When addressing how prevalent gender inequality is currently, she spoke about threats against her that she received, “The minute I stepped up and talked about women’s rights, I was immediately threatened. I mean, within less than 12 hours, I was receiving threats.”
Throughout the interview, however, Watson showed no signs of slowing down. Quite to the contrary, she expressed her unwavering desire to be able to see complete gender equality in her lifetime, although she was candid in pointing out that there is still much work to be done.
Watson was not alone in raising awareness of the absence of gender equality in the world on International Women’s Day. The Clinton Foundation called upon women around the world to take part in its campaign No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project.
The Clinton Foundation flooded social media platforms when female celebrities, politicians, world leaders and civilians set their identifying photos as a generic female silhouette with Not-There.org written across the bottom. The website, which explains the campaign’s investigation of gender inequality through the use of quantitative data, reads, “On International Women’s Day, the world woke up to find that many women were not there. This symbolic act reflected what a new analysis of women and girls’ progress says about the state of gender equality: we’re NOT THERE yet.”
Both Emma Watson, as a representative for UN Women and HeForShe, and The Clinton Foundation have had a lasting effect on the movement towards gender equality and contributed to the echoing nature of the messages dispelled on International Women’s Day: women may not be there yet, but, as Watson now famously stated regarding her compelling everyone to take action in change, “If not me, who? If not now, when?”
