On Sept. 21 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, New York, Emma Watson gave a courageous, passionate speech urging men to get involved in the feminist movement. The speech opened a campaign sponsored by U.N. Women called “He for She,” which is a campaign, according to Watson, that is the first of its kind at the U.N.
Watson’s speech has blown up Facebook feeds and Twitter hashtags across the country and has garnered both positive and negative attention from various media outlets.
“Fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating,” Watson said in her speech where she set out to correct this misconception. Feminism, she said, has become an “unpopular word.” Through “He for She,” she hopes to redefine it as a movement that welcomes men. “How can we effect change in the world,” Watson asked, “when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?” She mentions ways sexism hurts men as well as women, appealing to men to rethink feminism.
If Watson’s job was to engage a male audience, she did it fantastically. As of last Friday, over 150,000 men signed up for “He for She.” Tons of celebrities including Harry Styles, Chris Colfer, James Van Der Beek, Felica Day, Grant Gustin, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Gregg Sulkin, Forest Whitaker and Simon Pegg tweeted their support for Watson and the campaign. There is no doubt if the U.N. wanted their campaign to go viral, Watson was the woman for the job. She’s a household name with an Ivy League education, and her voice isn’t half bad either. The problem, though, is many aren’t sure the campaign itself is what the world needs.
The most glaring issue is that no plan for action or how to “enter the conversation” is provided yet, either by Watson or by the campaign itself.
“If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier. And for this I applaud you,” Watson said.
Really? Believing women aren’t less than men gets applause from Emma Watson? And here all this time I just thought it made you a decent human being. In all seriousness, it is important people feel able to identify as feminists, and I applaud Watson for encouraging that. But it’s not the saying of the identity that truly makes it. It’s the actions that come afterward. And thus far, “He for She” offers no suggestions for those actions. Maybe Watson and the U.N. have a huge plan up their sleeves. If so, I am eager to see the ways they mobilize their new army into action. So far, however, I am skeptical about what a next stage could entail.
It is impossible for Watson to give a comprehensive view of feminism in 17 minutes, and I realize her main goal was to appeal to affluent men. However, if she had brought up the ways the movement is trying to include intersectionality to defeat sexism and racism, she could have appealed to even more people.
“Feminist activists are as diverse as the obstacles with which they grapple. A uniting movement is not worth much if it glosses over those complexities,” argues The Guardian.
Indeed, in a campaign for uniting diverse people around a single cause, intersectional issues haven’t been addressed at all, by either Watson or the U.N.
Maybe I’m just jealous Emma Watson didn’t give me a speech about feminism. I went to the campaign website. It asked me if I was a man who was going to stand up for women’s rights. I wasn’t. I left, saddened. But it seems strange in a campaign for a movement based on the subjugation of women, women aren’t allowed to participate. Watson said men should not be excluded from feminist spaces. But the truth is unless women (of all colors) are allowed to speak, there is no progress. Are men welcome in the feminist movement? Absolutely. But only if they come to listen, to listen some more and to ultimately help others listen.
It’s awesome this campaign is garnering so much attention for feminism. As a call-to-arms, Watson and the U.N. have done an amazing job. However, I worry once these men take up their arms, they won’t have resources to know what to do with them.
