Emma Watson Launches HeForShe, a Gender Equality Movement Aimed at Men

This weekend, Emma Watson gave a speech at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, and it has the potential to change the future of feminism.

Emma Watson is known for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies, and earlier this summer she was named United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador. If you have yet to watch her speech, watch it now. It’s only 12(ish) minutes long, and it is totally worth it.

Now, I don’t know about you, but Emma’s speech brought tears to my eyes. For me, it is so amazing to see someone that I greatly admire give a speech about something that I truly care about. Not only that, but her delivery was poised, eloquent, and, most importantly, presented on a large platform that will have an outstanding reach.

I don’t want to talk too much about the speech in general, because I want to discuss the contents of what she talked about, and the questions that you may be asking. What is the goal of UN Women? How are they going to achieve that goal?

The goal pretty straightforward: to expand the support for gender equality from a select group of women to everyone… but, most importantly, to men. In Watson’s speech, she appeals directly to her male-listeners:

“Men, I would like to give 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. 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 to 49, eclipsing road accidents, cancer and heart disease. I’ve seen men fragile and insecure by what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality, either.”

By saying this, Watson is pointing out that no country has achieved gender equality. While this is something that self-proclaimed feminists like myself acknowledge everyday, most people don’t. They don’t stop to think, “Hey, not everyone in the world, or even in my own community, has equal rights and opportunities, That’s not cool. I want to fix that.” And that is what UN Women and Emma Watson are trying to change with the launch of HeForShe.

According to HeForShe.org, “HeForShe is a solidarity movement for gender equality that brings together one half of humanity in support of the other of humanity, for the entirety of humanity.” Pretty straightforward, right? Their goal is to get as many men as possible to sign up and pledge to “take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls.”

One of the coolest parts of this pledge is the interactive map showing the number of men that have made the HeForShe Commitment, organized by country and number of men in each country. As I am writing this, the total number of HeForShe Commitments is at 29,531, with 11,342 of these men hailing from the United States. This number is growing every second, and this website has been live for less-than 48 hours.

This movement is unprecedented in recent history, and I think it can really make a difference in the grand scheme of gender equality. One of my only critiques is that the word ‘feminism’ is not used once on the HeForShe website, although Emma Watson did talk about it a lot in her speech. I think the reasoning behind this is to attract more people to the cause, because, as Emma says in her speech, “recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists. Apparently, [women’s expression is] seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, and anti-men, unattractive even.” And, although she reiterates the true definition of feminism, it seems that the creators of the HeForShe movement thought it would be beneficial to leave the f-word out to better serve the movement’s goal.

So, I’m a little bummed that the word Feminism isn’t used on the HeForShe website, but I am willing to overlook this technicality to focus on the good that the movement can achieve. Advocacy is the first step to societal chance, and this solidarity movement has the potential to gain a lot of popularity very fast, which is why I urge everyone to get involved NOW.

Men: Make the commitment on the website. Take a look and see if the ideals fit with your own beliefs. Women: Spread this around to your male-friends. Everyone: Talk about why gender equality is important to you. Spread the word about HeForShe.org, use #HeforShe on twitter and instagram, and get pumped about gender equality! It’s up to our generation to be the change, and with the HeForShe movement, change may be possible sooner than we think.