On Saturday, September 20th, British actress Emma Watson gave an empowering speech on feminism at the UN Headquarters (Cole). The speech was a launch for “heforshe”, a program “which aims to get men and boys to pledge to join the feminist fight for gender equality” (Cole). In her speech, she shares the message of gender inequality and encourages males and females to fight to end gender inequality. Emma Watson sets fire to the audience on the feminism movement by reaching the emotions of the viewers, validating her credibility, and presenting statistics and facts to validate her arguments.
So what credence does Emma Watson have to speak on gender equality? Many people know her from the Harry Potter movies, so, because she is a well-known celebrity,…show more content… She uses motivational diction like, “you” “me” “us” “we” to move the audience. The rhetorical strategy of parallelism is used again by repeating the phrase “I think it is right” then following with compelling statements like “that I should be able to make decisions about my own body” and “that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decisions that will affect my life.” Watson stirs emotions by simply appreciating that her parent’s didn’t love her less because she was born a daughter and that her school didn’t limit her because she was a girl. But, in many countries today, there is extreme in-equality of the sexes. A November 2014 article titled “The Ten Worst Countries for Women”, Yemen is ranked number one for the highest literacy gap between males and females (Alex and Hess). In Yemen, 83% of men can read, while half of women cannot (Alex and Hess). That’s not the only country with significant gaps (Alex and Hess). Pakistan is right behind Yemen, followed by Chad, Syria, Mali, Iran, Cote d’Ivoire, Lebanon, Jordan, and Morocco (Alex and Hess). According to a study done by the International Labour Organization, the UNESCO Institute for Statistic and the World Health Organization, the United States falls short at number 20 when studied equality across the areas of health, education, economy, and politics (Snyder). After Watson’s speech, the website heforshe.com was open for the public to access (Home – HeForShe). Since September 2014, already as many as 310,113 men have signed the “heforshe commitment” agreeing as the website states, “gender equality is not only a women’s issue, it is a humans rights issue that requires my participation. I commit to take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls” (Home – HeforShe). She is driven to make a change and would like to see full gender equality in her lifetime. The actress