Emma Watson - My Hero

So, I really and truly have a perfectly good excuse for why I have not written in a month and five days. I am have been a giant ball of stress because in five days, I will be taking my LSAT to get into law school. Those who know me probably haven't seen me in years (weeks), because I have this awful tendency to hole myself up in my room and study.
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.
Gender is a societal construct, we force gender on each other every day by expecting a man or woman to behave in a particularly manly or womanly way


Study. 

Study. 

Study. 

Truly, Hermione Granger would be proud of me. Which provides me with an excellent way to jump into my real blog post tonight- 

Emma Watson and the HeForShe movement. 

You all know I am feminist, and I take great pride in this. I firmly believe in gender equality, and in all equality. I think it is right and just for men and women to be treated equally economically, politically, and socially. So does Emma. 

What really stood out to me about this, is that she's right- who is this Harry Potter girl and why is she talking to us about equality?

She is someone brave enough, strong enough, smart enough to take a stand and speak about what she believes in. God created us all equally, man and woman, and loves us all equally. We deserve to be treated equally, but we are not. 

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.

We should be free to be whomever we want to be, and to have any of the characteristics God has given us, rather than trying to be feminine or masculine according to our society. 

I'm currently taking a sociology class on gender studies, and the professor likes to make grand points that she finds are particularly impactful. When she does, she widens her eyes and makes an odd face. The widest her eyes have ever been was for this statement: 


But she is right, we. are not our gender. We are people with characteristics that someone along the way decided was masculine or feminine. 

Thank goodness I did not let those gender roles define me. Even at a young age, I was called loud, bossy, controlling, sassy, and sarcastic. All of these qualities were not appreciated in me because they were not feminine enough. But fifteen years later, those parents and peers who complained about me being bossy were congratulating me on my new job as camp director, saying that I would be perfect the job, and that I was a great leader. 

I pray and fight for equality every day so that my hypothetical daughter does not come home crying because she is "too bossy" and is disliked by her friend's parent's for those qualities that they expect from little boys, not girls. I hope for a day when my hypothetical son will not be afraid to have feelings, but also not be afraid to play sports, or read, or draw, or whatever it is that makes him happy, that makes him him. 

We have to work together to make a change, we cannot give this just 50% of our population, it takes 100% of us. 

HeForShe. 

Totus tuus my dears,

LeAnn 

Read Emma Watson's full speech here 

To Learn about the HeForShe movement, visit http://www.heforshe.org/