HeForShe Campaign, a hope for women and men.

The HeForShe Campaign has been created by the United Nations Women, 20 September 2014.

HeForShe Campaign's logo

  Do you know what is it exactly? Do you know what is its aim   
  precisely? 

  It is indeed a solidarity movement for gender equality. 

  We are going to explain to you the goals of this stick together 
  movement and then how we can join it to put in practise and act 
  in  order to stop gender inequalities - because if this movement 
  exists it is absolutely not to put pink in the whole world but to 
  make things change and to revolutionize Equality. However to 
  make it possible everybody needs to be involved.

  Not only women but also men.

The goal of the movement is to make men sympathize to feminism, and to encourage them but also the whole population to act so as to delete little by little violence and discrimination whose both genders are victims. By this way the men should become aware of the necessity of supporting the movement.     

"We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see that they are, and that when they will be free, things will change for women as a natural consequence”.

Men represent an essential part of this fight so they should express themselves and fight against gender inequalities. 

Logan Lerman

You are a man / boy and you want to act. What can you do? 
You may say: “Oh great but, me, how can I support the campaign?” Easily going on the website (http://www.heforshe.org/) and click on “Take Action” but you must believe in what you defend! On the HeForShe website they also give us a “Action Kit” where UN Women specifies the wherefores. It enables to give you some information about the implementation of the organization in our civil society, equality defendants and students. 

For example, you have to choose a president, then to organize an action calendar, after which you have to find funds at last you just have to launch the event!

Perhaps you already heard about this 
campaign but you do not remember when and why. Is it not thanks to Emma Watson's speech?

E. Waston during her speech, at the launch of the HeForShe

Actually, the Goodwill Ambassador of this movement is the famous actress Emma Watson, well-known for having one of the starring role in the Harry Potter films, since she played Harry's best friend, Hermione Granger. 

On September, 20^th in 2014, Emma Watson pronounced a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, in order to launch the campaign. So let's focus on the most important parts of the speech:

At he beginning she is reminding the definition of feminism: 

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

This movement is majority taken in hand by women. This may sound normal for some of us but in our time it’s not. Indeed, inequalities damage men too.

Emma Watson is also evoking the fact that the word “feminism” has become an uncomfortable one, and she is explaining that it should not be because this movement is working for equality between men and women, and this is normal for everybody to have the same rights.

Furthermore, she is affirming that she is a feminist, and she is not afraid about her position: we could even consider that she is proud of what she is and that is essential so as to lead such a capital campaign.

Moreover, she is involving that we still need feminism because gender equality has not been reached: she is even saying that “No country in the world can yet say that they achieved gender equality”. She also considers herself as lucky because she had several rights even if she was a woman whereas most of the time women in the world can not assert the same as her.

She is highlighting the fact that if we do nothing for women it will take ages to reach gender equality:“it will take seventy-five years, or for me to be nearly 100, before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same job […] and at current rates, it won't be until 2086 before all rural African girls can have a secondary education”. Thus, she is stressing inequalities in order to make people's change their minds and so change the world too.

Nonetheless, what you have to remember is that gender inequalities are not just unfavourable to women but also to men and Emma Watson is neatly reminding that: indeed, she is emphasizing some stereotypes which are wasting men's lives such as the fact that men should remain unmoved and strong, without needing any help with that example “I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help for fear it would make them 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”. 

 Consequently, the message she is trying to convey is, as we already said it, that not only women are confined in gender stereotypes, but men are too and it can destroy their lives. Therefore, she is giving two important advices which could make everybody freer “If men don't have to control, women won't have to be controlled” and “If we stop defining each other by what we are not, and start defining ourselves by who we are, we can all be freer”.

At last, in her whole speech she is repeatedly asserting that men have to be involved in gender equality too because they are concerned by stereotypes and because we can not expect to change the world only with its half. She is clearly inviting everybody to get interested in the movement and to start fighting for freedom and equal rights. Besides, she is proposing everybody to ask the ensuing sentence in moments of doubts “If not me, who ? If not now, when?”. Thus, I ask you to do the same so as to change the world.

Who are also involved?

If Emma Watson sustains the HeForShe Campaign as United Nations Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, you have to know that she is not the only one. There are two other crucial characters who are officially engaged in the campaign HeForShe.

Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary-general, is obviously the most important because, let's face, his role is capital in the United Nations. Besides the campaign could not begin without his decisive decisions. Ban Ki-Moon gave also a speech at the launch of the HeForShe Campaign in New York, the same day of Emma Watson's Speech, 20 September 2014.

First he began to thank Emma Watson for her presence and added a little joke: he hoped that Emma Watson could help for the climax of the feminist campaign with her magic wand. But anyway... Then he continued his honourable speech. He claimed that he considers himself a champion of women's equality: Indeed he would walk out if there were not more women at the next conference of business executives. So he is HeForShe. To finish Ban Ki-Moon gave two reasons to the men and boys to join the HeForShe campaign: Listen it could convince you! He said that the feminist movement is the responsibility of the whole world and not only women; what is more he finally suggested, particularly to men, to not raise your hands in violence but rather to raise your voices to stop the gender inequalities.

At the end of his speech, the United Nations secretary-general joined himself, as the first man, the HeForShe Campaign in the very website of the movement (http://www.heforshe.org/).

The second person who takes a considerable part in the feminist movement is a woman. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the United Nations Women Executive Director, was also present at the Launch of the campaign. 

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

She gave a speech next to Ban Ki-Moon's one. She explained at the beginning the different characteristics of the campaign, which Clara already presented to you. Furthermore she remained some facts concerning the violence which a large amount of women in the world have to support. She recalled that of all women killed in 2012, almost half were killed by intimate partners or family members. Then she spoke about the rape which is a rampant tactic as a weapon of war. In other words women are abused and sold as sex slaves most of the time during warfare. She mostly alluded to the rape of the Nigerian girls which triggered the “Bring back our girls” movement and the fact that we do not know yet where they are.

She finally justified Emma Watson's role in the HeForShe Campaign by her celebrity and confessed she counts on it to gather as much men and boys as possible in the movement. She thanked all the sponsors and merely the President of the United States, Barack Obama who accepted to diffuse all around him the role and the importance of the HeForShe Campaign.

Barack Obama indeed supports the feminist movement and appreciates it.

However you do not think that he is the only one. Next to the launch of the campaign a swarm of celebrities post pictures or tweets on the networks in order to support the campaign. Among them, we can find Will Smith, Russel Crowe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emile Hirsch, Prince Harry, Matt Demon, Chris Colfer, Logan Lerman, Matthew Lewis, Kevin Durand, and obviously... the Oxford University rugby team.  
A lot of ordinary people participate too. And there are the most important since they are less than the celebrities! So if you are a boy or man and you look like an ordinary person, and even if you look like a celebrity, think to sustain the HeForShe Campaign. If you are girl or a woman don't forget to give the word to your brothers, fathers or male friends.

The Oxford University rugby team

Nowadays, more than 7 200 French men participated and they are about 185,606 in the whole world. Although it’s a good number to start, it still is insufficient because they are 7 billion of inhabitants in the planet. 
That is why, we are counting in you.
And don't forget : “If not me, who ? If not now, when?”

 

ABTS.

Sylphide.

C.