Showing posts with label Emma Watson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emma Watson. Show all posts

Emma and the Fashion Industry



It's been about a year since she founded the gender equality movement #HeforShe and Emma Watson is still talking about sexism and its impact on women's daily lives.

In a new video, Emma speaks out about issues within the fashion industry, inviting several famous designers to share their thoughts on the topic as well.

 During the video, Watson discusses her thoughts on gender equality and asks questions to heavy fashion moguls from Jonathan Saunders to Stella McCartney on what they believe are the biggest struggles in the fashion world that are faced by women today.

 Watson also calls out the fashion world and asks fashion icons point blank if they are a feminist. Watch the video to see how the stunning and poise Watson grew into a young lady who’s on a mission to make a change and bring justice for all in fashion.

How did a Nice Guy Like Me...?

I just ran into a Woman Against Feminism and a guy who hates feminists, but believes strongly in equality of rights -- on tweeter. 

Tweeter is horrible for conversations like that, but I learned quite a bit. I'm weekss from being 50 years-old, so I've been around watching the Feminists getting more and more brutal for awhile. I get that the movement has gone awry. They pick fights when to do nothing would be to their benefit and make a stronger statement. They go after fights they can't win, ignore objectives where they could succeed, and frequently disown allies -- I'm incredibly happy I don't have to deal with them.

To be honest I forgot who Emma Watson was until she mentioned Harry Potter in the speech which I didn't catch when I read the transcript the first time. I checked around and it appears she wrote that speech herself. What is she? 18? 19? Wish I had a world view like that at 18.

At Equality Ms. Young is as Obtuse as a Senator

Ms Young, a contributing editor for Reason Magazine wrote an article which Time put on their website, entitled "Sorry, Emma Watson, but HeForShe Is Rotten for Men" If you are not prone to falling down after be assaulted by demagoguery or fall victim to vomiting when experiencing violent twists of logic, then give it a read.

Time, as a company, must be in dire straights. I look at the reactionary and purposeful angst of their headlines lately -- Time is becoming more like the National Enquirer every day. Did you see the one with the Teachers? Soon Time will be publishing articles titled "Emma Watson has Big Foot in her Cellar".

Yes, I understand that Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason magazine, came up with the title for this ... what is this? An Essay? or just an Editorial? It is basically bias, and often irrelevant opinion. Is that what an Editorial is these days? It use to be that the editors chose higher roads than the writers and reporters, but that doesn't seem to be the case any longer. Perhaps it is just the way things are at the Libertarian magazine known as Reason.

Finding out that Reason is a Libertarian production, didn't come as much of a shock. If there is one thing that Libertarians both declare affinity to, and show amazing lack of, it is Reason. I offer as citation the Koch brothers declaring that raising the minimum wage will result in Nazism. Yes, Nazism, because that is how seriously out of touch with reality most Libertarians are.

But let's set my personal lack of tolerance aside and look at Ms. Young's Reason-ing.
"Too bad they are belied by the campaign itself, which is called “HeForShe” and asks men to pledge to “take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls” but says nothing about problems affecting men and boys." -- Young

Now, see, this is why Libertarians get such a bad rap. They state something like this, as if no one has access to the speech -- the speech where Emma spends nearly a third of her time addressing exactly this area and bases her ideas on research in that area. She cites -- because of the problems affecting men and boys, there is a disproportional amount of suicides which her research tells her is directly related to issues of the inequality the male population faces everyday of their lives, which no one has really addressed in a meaningful way (which is true) and she proclaims that HeForShe is dedicated to seeing that this changes. So, we haven't even gotten into the article yet and the first proclamation is "Liar Liar Pants on Fire".

The next paragraph, again, the same thing. Now Ms. Young contradicts herself, saying that yes, Emma is addressing it, but Feminism doesn't. Which again, Emma talks about that very thing, and that this flaw that has woven itself into Feminism is based on Hate, rather than equality, and again, she declares that this must be addressed, and that HeForShe intends to be the platform for that issue.

Now, this next bit is so far out of whack that I have to quote it here, so we can take a look at it solidly.

Emma Watson's U.N. Speech


When I heard this speech, back in September of this year, my first thoughts were to marvel at how optimistically powerful she was. You don't get that much -- powerful and optimistic. Most of the time powerful speeches are dramatic and hard hitting. Or they are on the other side, being funny and pointedly humorous. A commonality found in most powerful speeches is the direction of force -- toward you, the listener -- which doesn't hold the energy of optimism without discord and degradation. 
"Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country."
...is a line from a powerful speech, which demonstrates what I'm talking about with the idea of Direction of Force. It's all on you. You can change the world. You can make this country great. You have the power. You rise up and face the challenges because you are what this country needs.
These claims might sound optimistic, but in fact they are closer to cheerleading. This is the rhetoric of building false structures. What is imbued feels powerful, but the power does not endure under stress. In our world examples of this abound. Face it, if all you need to be motivated to change our world is a "What you can do for your country" speech, then your problems are fairly shallow. Don't twist this, I'm not putting Kennedy's speech down. I like that speech. Unlike many of its kind, it has a brilliance which few have matched. But it has no optimism, only power and motivation.
So what is optimism, since I am wilfully calling out distinctions... 
You may disagree, but I understand confidence to be a quality, which can not be directed at you. Confidence can not be injected. Confidence is a quality, which is derived from experience. And experience is what you acquire roughly five seconds after you needed it. In other words, experience is acquired through the survival of failure, and the tenacity to solve afterward. The attribute of experience is formidable because of this -- not because of that sentiment given by Nietzsche, "whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger," but more from the confidence of "whatever doesn't kill me, had better start running..." Confidence is a quality, therefore, of realism. When someone cheerleads you into a sense of motivation and confidence, it never feels whole. That's because it never is.
This is actually the point of brilliance with Kennedy's speech. He's not bolstering his nation up, he's making them take stock, and to alter their perspective. He's putting the power in their hands, but not offering a false sense of ability. He's asking you to ask, "what can you do for your country?" He's directing his nation to take inventory. Times were rough, the problems were dire, and some didn't make it through to the otherside. But those who did, Kennedy points out, have the chance to return to the field, wiser, more cunning, and with a clarity unearned in any other fashion.
"Now the trumpet summons us again — not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are — but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out..."
Kennedy illuminates the uniqueness of their condition, and gracefully redirects their energy "With what you know now, what can you do?" It is an enlightened and effective alteration, which makes all the difference between his speech and the bolstering shams so many others bark out at crowds to rile and incite. 
Emma's speech is Powerfully Optimistic. There is no doubt in her words that this problem of inequality is real, nor any faltering regarding the existence of a solution. These two points are inalienable truths.in her speech, in spite  of the fact that no nation can claim the existence of social equality -- which she flatly admits. Despite the fact that all those who have gone before have been driven back and turned from their path of unity to a path of hate -- which she flatly admits. It is this admittance which calls attention to her experience. These are the failures, these are the flames from which she has come. And she has the solution. She was born in the solution. She was raised in the solution. The steel of her energy has met those flames, lived, and stepped forward to put them out. 
Her solution returns us to recognize and admit that this separation no longer works. Neither man or woman are moving forward any longer. We are stalemated and burdened so gravely, our inability to take action is becoming dire. We can not take the next step forward without the other. It is, as she says in more graceful terms, ours to do together or ours to wail at apart. This is not, and never has been a woman's problem, or a feminists problem. This is a human problem. Separation from each other is destroying the foundations of what we have always denied as being related to inequality. It is time to become human.
Her delivery is excellent as well, and the video is linked here.
TRANSCRIPT: Today we are launching a campaign called for HeForShe. I am reaching out to you because we need your help. We want to end gender inequality, and to do this, we need everyone involved.

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