Rhetorical Analysis Of Emma Watson's Speech

Emma Watson, a British actress and Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women, is one of the very few women fortunate enough to be paid equally as her male counterparts. Today, gender inequality still exists regarding employment, earnings, education, and more. At the U.N. headquarters in New York, Watson effectively addresses this ongoing issue and launches the HeForShe campaign—a solidarity movement for gender equality. In her speech, Watson rhetorically supports the fact that an innumerable amount of men and women are constantly faced with negative and pernicious stereotypes and expectations that hinder any country’s goals of gender equality; therefore, it is necessary for these assumptions of each gender to be abolished in order for there to be any

progress towards gender equality.
To begin with, Watson’s captivating anaphora emphasizes the importance for society to achieve gender equality. Near the beginning of the speech, Watson repeats the words “I think it is right” at the beginning of each sentence, followed each time by another right that women should have in order to be equal to males. Most women are unfortunate enough to not be paid the same as their male counterparts or receive the same respect as men, which Watson believes “to be human rights.” By highlighting this alarming problem and stating what is necessary and fair, Watson proves how there are still gender equality issues for women and how there is “no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive” equal rights with men. While it may seem like women are the only ones who suffer from gender discrimination, men also encounter it as well. Watson effectively revealed this by repeating the words “both men and women,” which connects the two genders and looks at them both as similar things and not as “two sets of opposing ideals.” Men are given the expectation that they need to be domineering, aggressive, and should never be sensitive, while women are expected the opposite. Masculinity is tied to how men should act and “men [have been] made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success,” which is the reason why there are so many instances of discrimination towards both men and women (Watson). Societies today teach boys that in order to be men, they need to denigrate women. This unhealthy outlook must be changed soon, and Watson points this out by saying, “if not me, who? If not now, when?” to stress how important it is to start being involved and making a change now. If someone wants reform to happen, they cannot just wait around for someone to make the change or delay it; otherwise, it will take several years for any change to happen.
Another strong method Watson utilizes to further enforce the need to change gender-based assumptions was appeal to logos.

Watson brings up the fact that men are only accepted in society if they are aggressive. She argues that men are trapped by these stereotypes, but that “if men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted, women won’t feel compelled to be submissive.” By using antithesis to connect aggressiveness and submissiveness, it simply reveals how intertwined the words are; once men are free from gender stereotypes, “things will change for women as a natural consequence” (Watson). Additionally, “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 that would be a huge step to end gender inequality (Watson). Society always attaches a certain standard for genders, which causes both men and women to be imprisoned by gender stereotypes. Emma Watson was successfully able to reveal that a person needs to be who they want to be and not what others expect them to be in order for them to gain their freedom from stereotypes. Once men and women achieve liberation from gender stereotypes, they can then reclaim “parts of themselves they abandoned” and become a “more true and complete version of themselves” (Watson). Watson’s logical statement acknowledges the abandonment of certain aspects that someone would be ashamed of due to the gender expectations put upon them, but once those expectations disappear, the abandoned aspects would soon be recovered again.

Watson’s purpose in her speech—to stop gender stereotypes and promote gender equality—was clearly expressed through her powerful anaphora and compelling appeal to logos. She was able to captivate the audience and persuade them to make a change and get involved with many others to forward the efforts towards gender

equality.