Emma Watson’s recent speech to the United Nations on gender equality, and what it means for both men and women and how to reclaim it for all people, could be seen as a turning point in which feminism can re-enter the mainstream. That a celebrity was needed in order to open the conversation about modern-day feminism and to clarify that feminism, as a movement, is still needed, is perhaps a sad reflection on our priorities as a society, yet Watson’s contribution is extremely welcome.
There have been criticisms leveled against Watson and her particular take on the gender equality movement. Indeed, the problems associated with a well-to-do, conventional white British actress using perhaps the world’s most revered and derided talking shop as an arena for voicing her opinions about how people should approach gender equality are largely obvious, as are the problems with reducing gender down to “he” and “she” and ignoring the gender spectrum.
Yet, it is clear that Watson’s speech is a hugely significant step, that has marked feminism perhaps finally entering the mainstream (or at least our Twitter feeds), after decades of many assuming that the glass ceiling had supposedly been well and truly cracked, or that feminism is no longer needed, at least in the first world.
In the same way that Beyoncé’s outspoken support for gender equality and unashamed sexism have championed the sometimes divisive movement to a whole new generation, Watson’s contribution is just as important as Beyoncé posing in front of the “F” word at the MTV VMAs a few weeks ago, in that it provides men with a similar incentive to involve themselves, and not to take the all-too-familiar excuse that feminism, or the gender-equality movement, is just an exercise in male-hating.
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Written by the Editorial Board of The University Times
