The main core of her speech was to galvanise boys and men to advocate the issue of gender equality. She started off by defining feminism in proper and easy words reiterating the fact that this phenomenon has become very unpopular recently.
But the main essence of her speech, for a man like me, was the fact that she didn’t only talk about how bad men are and how they act violently to subjugate a woman. She explained that behavioural change in both genders can lead to harmony. She offered men to join the movement against gender disparity. She went for a rational approach of inviting every individual, male or female, to muse upon the benefits of empowering women rather than only the birth-giving gender.
I came across a lot of anti-Emma remarks from a certain class of feminists whom she defined as the men-hating feminists. They would quote her speech in pieces to raise hatred against her but in full context, the speech had no flaws as Emma was able to give a complete detail of how she thinks every man who is married, had raised a daughter or was accompanied by a sister or by any woman in her life is a feminist.
She exemplifies her own self to propose a solution to this dilemma. She explains how no one in her life impeded her way towards growth. Her parents loved her as a daughter, mentors never thought less of her as a female and the institution of her education never threw her down for being a weaker gender. She nominates all these people as the ambassadors who made her a feminist. A person who believes men and women should be treated equally on political, social and economic grounds.
One can take inspiration from her speech to work for gender equality as she for the first time invites men to a feminist fiesta.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 28th, 2014.
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