rhetorical devices in heforshe speech

Gender Equality is Your Issue Too (UN Speech)

Gender equality is your issue too (un speech) lyrics.

How to Format Lyrics:

• Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
• Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
• Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
• Use italics ( <i>lyric</i> ) and bold ( <b>lyric</b> ) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
• If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

Goodwill ambassador (or more famously, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter) Emma Watson spoke for the HeforShe campaign at the U.N. Headquarters in New York on Saturday.

Transcript taken from U.N. Women .

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Genius is the world’s biggest collection of song lyrics and musical knowledge

Emma Watson: Gender equality is your issue too

Date: Saturday, 20 September 2014

Speech by UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson at a special event for the HeForShe campaign, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 20 September 2014

[Check against delivery.]

Today we are launching a campaign called “ HeForShe .”

I am reaching out to you because I need your help. We want to end gender inequality—and to do that we need everyone to be involved.

This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN: we want to try and galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality. And we don’t just want to talk about it, but make sure it is tangible.

I was appointed six months ago and the more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.

For the record, feminism by definition is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.”

I started questioning gender-based assumptions when at eight I was confused at being called “bossy,” because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents—but the boys were not.

When at 14 I started being sexualized by certain elements of the press.

When at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn’t want to appear “muscly.”

When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings.

I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word.

Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive.

Why is the word such an uncomfortable one?

I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.

No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality.

These rights I consider to be human rights but I am one of the lucky ones. My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn’t love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn’t assume I would go less far because I might give birth to a child one day. These influencers were the gender equality ambassadors that made me who I am today. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists who are changing the world today. And we need more of those.

And if you still hate the word—it is not the word that is important but the idea and the ambition behind it. Because not all women have been afforded the same rights that I have. In fact, statistically, very few have been.

In 1995, Hilary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women’s rights. Sadly many of the things she wanted to change are still a reality today.

But what stood out for me the most was that only 30 per cent of her audience were male. How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?

Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.

Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s.

I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49 years of age; 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. Men don’t have the benefits of equality either.  

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 not as two opposing sets of ideals.

If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we 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.

You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing up on stage at the UN. It’s a good question and trust me, I have been asking myself the same thing. I don’t know if I am qualified to be here. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.

And having seen what I’ve seen—and given the chance—I feel it is my duty to say something. English Statesman Edmund Burke said: “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men and women to do nothing.”

In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt I’ve told myself firmly—if not me, who, if not now, when. If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope those words might be helpful.

Because the reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates it won’t be until 2086 before all rural African girls will be able to receive a secondary education.

If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier.

And for this I applaud you.

We are struggling for a uniting word but the good news is we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, to be the "he" for "she". And to ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when?

Also available in: French ; Spanish ; Portuguese

To see a video of Emma delivering her speech, visit HeForShe.org

• ‘One Woman’ – The UN Women song
• UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous
• Kirsi Madi, Deputy Executive Director for Resource Management, Sustainability and Partnerships
• Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Deputy Executive Director for Normative Support, UN System Coordination and Programme Results
• Guiding documents
• Report wrongdoing
• Programme implementation
• Career opportunities
• Application and recruitment process
• Meet our people
• Internship programme
• Procurement principles
• Gender-responsive procurement
• Doing business with UN Women
• How to become a UN Women vendor
• Contract templates and general conditions of contract
• Vendor protest procedure
• Facts and Figures
• Global norms and standards
• Women’s movements
• Parliaments and local governance
• Constitutions and legal reform
• Preguntas frecuentes
• Global Norms and Standards
• Macroeconomic policies and social protection
• Sustainable Development and Climate Change
• Rural women
• Employment and migration
• Facts and figures
• Creating safe public spaces
• Spotlight Initiative
• Essential services
• Focusing on prevention
• Research and data
• Other areas of work
• UNiTE campaign
• Conflict prevention and resolution
• Building and sustaining peace
• Young women in peace and security
• Rule of law: Justice and security
• Women, peace, and security in the work of the UN Security Council
• Preventing violent extremism and countering terrorism
• Planning and monitoring
• Humanitarian coordination
• Crisis response and recovery
• Disaster risk reduction
• Inclusive National Planning
• Public Sector Reform
• Tracking Investments
• Strengthening young women's leadership
• Economic empowerment and skills development for young women
• Action on ending violence against young women and girls
• Engaging boys and young men in gender equality
• Leadership and Participation
• National Planning
• Violence against Women
• Access to Justice
• Regional and country offices
• Regional and Country Offices
• Liaison offices
• 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
• UN Women Global Innovation Coalition for Change
• Commission on the Status of Women
• Economic and Social Council
• General Assembly
• Security Council
• High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development
• Human Rights Council
• Climate change and the environment
• Other Intergovernmental Processes
• World Conferences on Women
• Global Coordination
• Regional and country coordination
• Promoting UN accountability
• Gender Mainstreaming
• Coordination resources
• System-wide strategy
• Focal Point for Women and Gender Focal Points
• Entity-specific implementation plans on gender parity
• Laws and policies
• Strategies and tools
• Reports and monitoring
• Training Centre services
• Publications
• Government partners
• National mechanisms
• Civil Society Advisory Groups
• Benefits of partnering with UN Women
• Business and philanthropic partners
• Goodwill Ambassadors
• National Committees
• UN Women Media Compact
• UN Women Alumni Association
• Editorial series
• Media contacts
• Annual report
• Progress of the world’s women
• SDG monitoring report
• World survey on the role of women in development
• Reprint permissions
• Secretariat
• 2023 sessions and other meetings
• 2022 sessions and other meetings
• 2021 sessions and other meetings
• 2020 sessions and other meetings
• 2019 sessions and other meetings
• 2018 sessions and other meetings
• 2017 sessions and other meetings
• 2016 sessions and other meetings
• 2015 sessions and other meetings
• Compendiums of decisions
• Reports of sessions
• Key Documents
• Brief history
• CSW snapshot
• Preparations
• Official Documents
• Official Meetings
• Side Events
• Session Outcomes
• CSW65 (2021)
• CSW64 / Beijing+25 (2020)
• CSW63 (2019)
• CSW62 (2018)
• CSW61 (2017)
• Member States
• Eligibility
• Registration
• Opportunities for NGOs to address the Commission
• Communications procedure
• Grant making
• Accompaniment and growth
• Results and impact
• Knowledge and learning
• Social innovation
• UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women
• About Generation Equality
• Generation Equality Forum
• Action packs

• DOI: 10.30872/CALLS.V1I2.691
• Corpus ID: 158612345

Emma Watson's Magic Spell in Gender Equality: the Use of Rhetorical Devices in “Heforshe” Campaign

• N. Valiantien
• Published 1 December 2015

3 Citations

Rhetorical devices used by mark zuckerberg in his 2007 harvard commencement speech, rhetorical devices used by simon sinek when delivering an inspirational speech, the self-actualization of sara crewe in a little princess novel by frances hodgson burnett, 6 references, discourse analysis.

• Highly Influential

Rhetorical questions as redundant interrogatives

Language and politics, related papers.

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Title: An Analysis on the HeForShe Speech of Emma Watson in Correcting Misconceptions on Feminism and Gender Equality

2019, TSU College of Arts and Social Sciences Faculty Journal

Promoting gender equality and empowering women is a Millennium Development Goal set by the United Nations as a way to address gender-related issues that are prevalent in societies. To ensure the success of campaigns and movements related to the aforementioned concepts and to contribute towards development, it is important to clearly explain the said terminologies. This study used Feminist Rhetorical Criticism and Speech Act Theory to unveil the misconceptions, re-introduce the terms feminism and gender equality, identify the key terms used in the speech to correct such misconceptions, and understand the intended meanings attached to the context of the speech by Emma Watson during the launch of the HeForShe campaign of the UN. Watson mentioned in her speech that over the years, feminism has been equated with man-hating, and that gender equality is an issue that affects men and women alike. The misconceptions arose due to the Three Waves of Feminism during the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The speech was instrumental in proving five out of six feminist premises identified by Lois Tyson (2006). These feminist premises gave a clear view of what feminism and gender equality means as it was evidently framed in Watson’s speech.

RELATED PAPERS

Simon Carter

Mieke Verloo , Meike Schmidt-Gleim

International Journal of English Linguistics

Safina Kanwal , Maria Isabel Maldonado Garcia

Shamim Meer (2013): Feminist contributions, challenges and claims, Agenda: Empowering women for gender equity, DOI:10.1080/10130950.2013.798958

Shamim Meer

Dirasat: Human and Social Sciences

Hanan Amaireh

RATNA ANUGRAH

Development and Change

J.S. Hancox

OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra

Dini Nur Islamiyati, , S.S., S.Hum.

Guidance & Counselling 17.4

Jessica L Shumake

Professional Communication and Translation Studies

Andreea VOINA

Balabhadra Tripathy

Wendy Lynne Lee

Catherine Rottenberg

ETNOLINGUAL

Feny Anggeria

Politics & Gender

Joni Lovenduski

Linguistics and Education

Ivanovich Agusta

Language, Gender and Hate Speech A Multidisciplinary Approach

Giuliana GIusti

Franck Amoussou

Canadian Woman Studies Journal: Feminist Gift Economy, A Materialist Alternative to Patriarchy and Capitalism

Amy Reed-Sandoval

Hela Mornagui

Journal of International Women S Studies

Yvette Taylor

Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition

Nicole Khoury

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

HeForShe U.N. speech - Sept. 21, 2014

Your excellencies, U.N. Secretary General, President of the General Assembly, Executive Director of U.N. Women and distinguished guests. Today, we are launching a campaign called HeForShe. I am reaching out to you because we need your help. We want to end gender inequality and to do this we need everyone involved. This is the first campaign of its kind at the U.N. We want to try and galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for change and we don't just want to talk about it. We want to try and make sure that it's tangible.

I was appointed as goodwill ambassador for U.N. Women six months ago, and the more I've spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women's rights has too often become synonymous with man hating. If there is one thing I know for certain it is that this has to stop. For the record, feminism by definition is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.

I started questioning gender based assumptions a long time ago. When I was eight, I was confused for being called bossy because I wanted to direct the plays that we would put on for our parents, but the boys were not. When I was 14, I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media. When at 15, my girlfriends started dropping out of their beloved sports teams because they didn't want to appear muscly. When at 18, my male friends were unable to express their feelings, I decided that I was a feminist, and this seemed uncomplicated to me but my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists. Apparently, I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating and anti-men, unattractive even. Why has the word become such an uncomfortable one?

I am from Britain, and I think it is right that I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and the decisions that will effect my life. I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men, but sadly, I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights. No country in the world can yet say that they have achieved gender equality.

These rights I consider to be human rights, but I am one of lucky ones. My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn't love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn't assume that I would go less far because I might give birth to a child one day. These influences were the gender inequality ambassadors that made me who I am today. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists who are changing the world today. We need more of those, and if you still hate the word, it is not the word that is important, it's the idea and the ambition behind it because not all women have received the same rights that I have. In fact, statistically, very few have been.

In 1997, Hillary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women's rights. Sadly, many of the things that she wanted to change are still true today, but what stood out for me the most was that less than 30 percent of the audience were male. How can we effect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcomed to participate in the conversation? Men, I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation.

Gender equality is your issue too. Because to date, I've seen my father's role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother's. I've seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help for fear it would make them less of a men or less of a man. In fact, in the UK, 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. Men don't have the benefits of equality either.

We don't often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see 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 of two sets of opposing ideals. If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are, we can all be freer, and this is what HeForShe is about. It's about freedom. I want men to take up this mantel so that 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.

You might be thinking, who is this "Harry Potter" girl? What is she doing speaking at the U.N.? And, it's a really good question. I've been asking myself the same thing. All I know is that I care about this problem, and I want to make it better and having seen what I've seen and given the chance, I feel it is my responsibility to say something.

Statesman Edmund Burke said, "All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing." In my nervousness for this speech, and in my moments of doubt, I've told myself firmly, if not me, who? If not now, when? If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you, I hope that those words will be helpful because the reality is that if we do nothing, it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work.

Fifteen point five million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children, and at current rates, it won't be until 2086 before all rural African girls can have a secondary education. If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists that I spoke of earlier, and, for this, I applaud you. We are struggling for a uniting word, but the good news is that we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe.

I am inviting you to step forward to be seen and to ask yourself, if not me, who? If not now, when? Thank you very, very much.

Speech courtesy of http://www.upworthy.com/her-voice-might-tremble-but-emma-watsons-message-is-strong-and-clear .

Neither the Catt Center nor Iowa State University is affiliated with any individual in the Archives or any political party. Inclusion in the Archives is not an endorsement by the center or the university.

• Paired Texts
• Related Media
• Teacher Guide
• Parent Guide

For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

• CommonLit is a nonprofit that has everything teachers and schools need for top-notch literacy instruction: a full-year ELA curriculum, benchmark assessments, and formative data. Browse Content Who We Are About