Emma Watson gave a speech at the United Nations Headquarters, launching the HeForShe campaign, calling for a greater involvement in the fight against discrimination faced by women and girls. A short essay written by Chimamanda Adichie called, We Should All Be Feminists, discusses feminism as an issue that all of humanity should be concerned with. Both the short essay and the speech create a pattern when placing one in proximity to the other to make a point that feminism is also a man's problem and specifically states ways that men can make a difference. Emma Watson and Chimamanda Adichie stress that issue of feminism today, is one equally applicable to both sexes. Both women cross the party lines to invite the men to join them in fight for equality. The purpose of both compositions, is to instill confidence in women from an early age, to engage men in feminism, and to illustrate the importance of breaking sexes stereotypes that are places on women.
The most proactive way to eliminate discrimination towards woman is to instill confidence in young girls so that they will be able to not only proudly and confidently defend their own feminine rights but will also be able to defend the feminine rights of others. Adichie proclaims in her essay that we teach girls one thing, but we don't teach boys the same. We restrain the humanity of boys because masculinity is defined narrowly as hard. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, and of vulnerability in order to mask their true selves. The expectation that a man will pay the bill is one of many examples of the pressures men encounter to prove their masculinity. Emma Watson states that young men suffering from mental illness feel that they are unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less "macho. " She provides an example that at fifteen her girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn't want to appear muscly.
