Emma Watson's inspiring 2014 speech at the UN Women's HeForShe event has been viewed more than 1 million times. She says in a new interview she was discouraged from using the term "feminism" but did so anyway.
Credit: Jennifer Brett
Credit: Jennifer Brett
"I started questioning gender-based assumptions a long time ago," she says in the clip below. "When at 14 I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media, when at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their beloved sports teams because they didn't want to appear muscly, when at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings, I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me... Feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists. Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating and anti-men."
In an interview with Porter magazine the star of the "Harry Potter" series films says someone (she didn't say who) tried talking her out of using the term.
"But I thought long and hard and ultimately felt that it was just the right thing to do. If women are terrified to use the word, how on earth are men supposed to start using it?"
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