Emma Watson tells UN that men are also suffering from gender inequality
British actor Emma Watson proudly declared her feminism as she tried to shatter gender stereotypes in a speech to the United Nations.
"I'm reaching out to you because we need your help," Watson said this morning. "We want to end gender inequality. To do this, we need everyone involved."
Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, told delegates that gender equality is also a male issue, suggesting that men also don't have the benefit of equality.
"I've seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help for fear it would make them less...of a man," Watson said. "In fact in the U.K., suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20 to 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."
Watson, the UN Women's global goodwill ambassador, said she started questioning gender-based assumptions when she was eight years old.
"I was confused being called bossy because I wanted to direct the plays that we wanted to put on for our parents, but the boys were not," she stated.
At 14, she "started being sexualized by certain elements of the media". The next year, her friends stopped participating in organized sports for fear of appearing masculine.
At 18, her male friends were unable to express their emotions.
"I decided that I was a feminist and this seems uncomplicated to me," Watson said. "But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists. Apparently, I'm among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, and antimen—unattractive even. Why has the word become such an uncomfortable one?"
She said that once men are freed from "being imprisoned by gender stereotypes", the situation will improve 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," Watson stated. "If men don't have to control, women won't have to be controlled. Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong. It is time that we all perceived gender on a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals."
Comments
3 Comments
As I Said
Sep 22, 2014 at 12:24pm
on-air in 2001, men have hearts the exact same as women. I chose a life without limits, and values that include and celebrate the menfolk. Love, Rachel
Slim Chancer
Sep 27, 2014 at 6:27am
Why not start with something a little less gender-oriented and try and work to end oh, I dunno - poverty. You might find that that goal would do a hell a lot more for humanity - but then, I guess that doesn't make comfortable, university-educated, took-a-second-year-class-in-Feminist-studies, middle-class, entitled white women's slice of the economic pie any bigger, does it, movie star?
Right. Real work and principled stands are *hard*.
Terry Spencer
Sep 27, 2014 at 7:09am
> "Why has the word become such an uncomfortable one?"
Because the same media that promotes your movies *loves* having polarizing writers and columnists stir up shit, Ms. Watson. So readers get the endless promotion of extreme perspectives, looking to incite yet another "1200 comments" article. And this can very much be laid at the feet of female writers and their editors (Hello Jezebel, Feministing, etc), who are quite aware that you don't piss off women, because *they buy shit* with all that economic power they've steadily gained. So you just keep peddling the company line.
Angry, bitter women can be played like a fiddle, so hit all the right notes and voila! This is called "marketing". You find a market (bronies, furbies, men's rights activists, teenage goths, etc, etc etc) and you sell them what they want to hear or see.
It's explosions and superheros for the bell hooks set.
It's why interviewers can lay in softball, horseshit questions like "You have such strong female characters" when talking to authors and nobody rolls their eyes at the stupidity of (or indignant at the presumption behind ) such a question or statement. What's the difference between this inane, moron-appeasing horseshit and saying something truly idiotic like, "I liked how your black characters don't play basketball."? Seriously.
It's the equivalent of a back-handed bitch-slap.
That's where we're at with this 'identity politics' these days. Nothing but a ghetto.
Doris Lessing - 2001 : ""I was in a class of nine- and 10-year-olds, girls and boys, and this young woman was telling these kids that the reason for wars was the innately violent nature of men.
"You could see the little girls, fat with complacency and conceit while the little boys sat there crumpled, apologising for their existence, thinking this was going to be the pattern of their lives."
Lessing said the teacher tried to "catch my eye, thinking I would approve of this rubbish"."
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/aug/14/edinburghfestival2001.edinburg...
Hope that helps our little starlet.