HeForShe: Feminism Gets a Manly Makeover

Feminism is the new buzzword on the street thanks to Emma Watson. Her speech on gender inequality at the United Nation’s Headquarters in New York marked her as a UN Global Goodwill Ambassador who is making it her mission (and yours) to tackle the problem of gender inequality. The campaign #HeForShe encourages men and boys to take on the fight for women’s rights. In her speech, Watson correctly acknowledged that gender inequality affects men just as much as women and she intends to get the support of one billion men and boys as advocates for the cause. We’ve got a favourite quote from the speech, which you can check out below, but don’t forget to read her full one here and if you have something to say about the cause, get your brother, boyfriend, dad and granddad on the #HeForShe bandwagon, because it’s time for a change.

“We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that 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. 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 perceive gender on a spectrum instead two opposing sets of ideals. If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we just are – we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom. I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too – reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.”

Click here to view Watson’s full speech.