Tallie Nikitchyuk, Staff Writer
Emma Watson, a newly delegated U.N. Women Goodwill Ambassador, recently gave a speech announcing HeForShe. HeForShe is self-described as “a solidarity movement for gender equality”, and its message is sweeping the globe. This campaign, which addresses the lack of men supporting feminism, has already been endorsed by many prominent figures such as President Obama, Harry Styles, and Prince Harry. The idea is to have men make a pledge at www.heforshe.org, where a downloadable action kit is also available in order to provide the necessary materials to launch your own campaign against gender discrimination.
However, some people disagree with HeForShe’s message. The opposition thinks that HeForShe’s message encourages the image of heroism and that women need to depend on men to make change for themselves. This concept is contradictory to the cause HeForShe is promoting. They also say that HeForShe implies that there are only two genders, male and female, and do not include non-binary or trans* people.
The blog Papa-Kiki on Tumblr says, “It’s about abuse against femininity, not women. It’s femininity which is considered weak, dependent, and eventually submissive – no matter if it’s embodied by a woman or a man.” This view questions the validity of the argument for feminism, since he is saying that gender discrimination is not the root of the cause, discrimination against femininity is.
Still, others agree with HeForShe’s concept. Supporters of the HeForShe movement say that men do not face the same issue of rape culture as women do. For example, when a woman is raped, people always point to whether she was intoxicated or dressed provocatively rather than blaming the actual rapist. Also, women face discrimination everywhere from the courtroom to the workplace. In America, women do not have equal protection under the law, and women are being paid less than men for doing the same jobs. According to the Equal Payback Project, for every dollar a white man makes, a white woman makes seventy-seven cents, a black woman makes sixty-four cents, and a Hispanic woman makes fifty-six cents. Over the course of a career with 69 million women in the workforce, that is a total of nearly thirty trillion dollars lost due to the wage gap between men and women in America.
The blog Whitetrashgirl on Tumblr states, “Feminism seeks to end the ‘male dominance’ attitude. Ending [the] ‘male dominance’ attitude will be beneficial to society, to women, and to men.” Yet, she still has issues with the name, saying “...instead of ‘He For She’ it needs to be ‘He and She for All’. This I can stand behind. We need to all work together to make it acceptable to be feminine...”
Personally, I believe that HeForShe is important to open up discussion surrounding male involvement in the gender equality movement. Equality should be a goal for everyone, no matter what your gender, race, creed, or social standing is. It is time for men to have compassion for their wives, daughters, sisters, and other women in their lives because of the struggles they face for being female. This is not an issue only for women, it is an issue for everyone.
Overall, HeForShe has brought many topics up for discussion. Hopefully, men will become more involved in the movement for gender equality, and we will make more progress. It is an issue that affects people in all walks of life, and will continue to be a prevalent topic internationally until change is made.
Photo Credit; dailysignal.com
