Le féminisme (document en anglais)

Too old, too young, too woman. Does it mean not creditable or incapable? Don’t forget the first two issues but let’s talk about feminism.

On the 20, September 2014, United Nations Women's Solidarity Movement for Gender Equality launched its global campaign called HeForShe kicked off by its Goodwill ambassador, the actress Emma Watson. The campaign started with a powerful speech made by Emma Watson to invite men to speak about gender equality.

This fight was only a struggle led by women for women but in recent years the trend tend to change and men take part and stand-up against the inequalities and discriminations faced by women. Emma Watson insisted on the feminism definition to make sure that everyone can understand the idea behind this word which is still associate with man-hating. Here is the definition: “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.”

So, we are able to ask what kind of commitment men should do to follow the movement? The first part is that men signed the pledge on the HeForShe website and start talking about gender equality. In reality, social media had a big impact on the campaign. Indeed, the idea was embraced by many famous men on social media as Tweeter and Facebook. All of them are agreed to say that gender equality is not only a women’s issue, it is a human rights issue that requires my participation. I commit to take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls. The message was delivered with a picture of themselves taking a piece of paper with the following hastag: #HeForShe. That was an immediately Buzz related by social media. People like Russell Crowe, Forest Whitaker and Yoko Ono brought more than 100.000 men made commitment on the HeForShe website in three days. Then, we can see political personality like the president of the United States Barack Obama making commitment in the movement and saying: “Lifting women up lifts up our economy and lifts up our country. We have sure that somebody is standing up for them.” Around the world all but 200.000 men have committed and HeForShe hold 90 offices around the world and distribute an action kit for every organization which wants to make a commitment on the movement.

Now, we are going to see why this is so important? Why all this pain? Some figures will help us to better understand the topic and its significance. As Emma Watson said on her speech “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.” Just recently, a video showed how a woman experienced 108 instances of cat-calling, ogling, and stalking by strangers during the ten hour social experiment where she walked around New York. Also, female workers in the United States are paid only 77 cents for every dollar their male colleagues make, and only 4.2 percent of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies are women.

On the 30, September 2014, Iceland has announced a United Nations conference on women and gender equality at which only men will be invited. Also, HeForShe movement launched its campaign in India (New Delhi) at the 18, October during the festival at IIT Delhi, in which this year's the social awareness drive is 'SHE'. Nearly 50 percent of women in South Asia and over 60 percent in the Pacific Islands are still concentrated in agriculture. Unpaid work on family agricultural enterprises accounts for 34 percent of informal employment for women in India.

Of course as we can see in every campaigns, there is an opposition part. It started by a site www.emmayouarenext.com to make believe that hackers would put compromising photos of Emma Watson on the net. It appeared that it was hoax made by Rantic Marketing. It redirected the Watson site to another Web site www.rantic.com with a new message: #Shutdown4Chan. 4Chan is a website implied on several celebrity nude leaks. Others believers explain their opposing or different ideas on the topic and we tackle their arguments later.

Feminism is a big interesting word and it deserves to be analyze and understand by everyone. In my opinion, HeForShe trying to help us, men and women, to be more comprehensive towards each other and then understand what going on, what is the big issue and how we can handle it? I want to know how the world could get there, why in some minds, women have not the same credit than men for a job or how it is possible to beat, harass a woman. I need to be, I must be able to understand this issue more deeply to be able to make my own opinion. Why I want to be involve in this social awareness after all? I’m a man, I cannot have anything to do, but I do, because I think there is a very great woman on the shadow of every great man. So, I chose this subject because women deserves it. I think it’s a duty.

In this part we are going to describe and analyze the Emma Watson’s speech based on theoretical concepts. We also see the differences between masculine and feminine behaviors about gender equality.

She said “We want to end gender inequality and to do that we need everyone to be involved.” In 2013, it is estimated that the world’s population is about 49, 66 percent female and 50, 34 percent male and more men than women are found in the upper echelons of government and business. Worldwide, women represents only 15 percent of executive officer position in 2013. This type of inequality comes from culture sets the expected norms and values of gender related behavior.

She explain she considers herself as “one of the lucky ones. My life is a sheer privilege… Because not all women have been afforded the same rights that I have. In fact, statistically, very few have been.” She is rights. Through this observation Emma Watson highlights there are many differences with nations and cultures with how these behaviors play out. Take an example of this issue. In 2009, a survey of 15.000 youth revealed that 67 percent of Egyptian female respondents still believed that a woman deserved to be beaten by her husband if she speaks to another man. Further, women represents only 23 percent of all employees in India against 52 percent in the United States in 2010.

We are going to approach the ambivalent sexism here. “When at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn’t want

...