About Emma Watson’s HeForShe Speech at the United Nations

Recently I’ve been hearing a lot about Emma Watson’s message. It’s not anything new, I believe, and probably most people I know agree with it, including me. But even so, if the message needs to be sent a million times more to be heard, then welcome to it.

BUT… There’s something that, in my opinion, weakens her reasoning (luckily most of her arguments sustain themselves): she talks about equality, but from a feminism position. She talks about how it is an uncomfortable word, and claims it is not important. But it is. Something as simple as a word can be very important and change the direction of a revolution, I believe, more than anything, in the stregth of words. Why don’t we talk about equality? By its definition, feminism aproaches to something as wrong as male chauvinisn, or any kind of sexism. Lets change words then; if we defend equality, we can’t be feminists, it would not make sense, and would be a wrong possition. Lets fight for this idea, but lets fight seriously, not as in this last years. That is what we need. The problem is that we’ve converted a good idea into something used to give good image. Everybody talks about it, but what do they do? (I don’t mean here Emma Watson, but the people who don’t really believe the message) Even many people around you will say they are very proud of Emma’s words, but in their lifes, what do they do? Do they treat equally men and women? Do they consider them of the same value? So again, lets fight for equality, everybody together, but not for feminism. Feminism (the real feminism) is just a lie, made for concerned people to believe something is changing, while it’s not.

If we want things to change, lets talk about pornography, lets talk about many other situations where women are treated as objects, while they are told it’s the best way to be equal, or free. Because in some aspects, as the salary, we can demand equality. But fair job retribution is a simple concept, it’s something that can, and must, be changed fast, but the root of this problem lies, as Emma says, in the society and the culture. But not how she says. Because she is forgetting that there is an important part, which is the biology. And that means there are things that we cannot change, including some stereotypes. It would be as intolerant or sexist to pretend that we are exactly the same. We are the same in value and in dignity, but many people haven’t learned is to manage those differences, to accept them. Because some of them need to be considered.

But, again, I don’t mean to be negative, I share the point: There si a problem which affects us all, the problem is cultural, and we have to fix it.

Here is the speech if you haven’t seen it.