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Analysis Of Emma Watson Speech

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Analysis on Emma Watson’s speech, “Gender Equality is Your Issue Too”
Emma Watson, best known as a leading actress in the Harry Potter series, gave a speech titled “Gender equality is your issue too” during a HeForShe campaign at the United Nations headquarters in New York City during on September 20, 2014, in attempt to raise awareness about gender inequality. Throughout the speech, Watson attempted to persuade the audience in joining the HeForShe campaign by providing examples of those who have been subject to the burdens of gender inequality – however, this speech could be considered problematic due to Watson’s lack of credibility and failure to include all types of people in our society. What mainly gave rise to Watson addressing this topic was her emotions attached to the burdens people have felt because of gender inequality. Watson used pathos, an appeal to emotion, to grasp the audience’s attention. Watson provides examples of events in her own life such as, “When at 14, I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media,” which has helped spark her interest in taking steps to end gender inequality (Watson). Watson provided numerous examples of other women, “When at 15, my girlfriends started dropping out of sports teams because they didn’t want to appear muscly,” as well as examples of males (Watson). Watson recognizes the fact that men are typically less likely to join in the fight for gender equality. In order for Watson to later “invite” men to join the

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