Women to Admire: Emma Watson
More than 16 years after making her screen debut as Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger, Emma Watson continues to inspire as a role model for young women.
Emma Watson became one of my favorite actors when she was cast as Hermione Granger, the titular character’s brainy, feminist friend in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I was only nine when that movie came out and was anything but a reliable judge of on-screen performances. I just knew that Hermione was the coolest, ergo Emma Watson was the coolest.
Turns out my pre-adolescent instincts were spot-on.
My fond opinion of Watson has only grown stronger in the intervening 16-plus years. She’s an actress who’s unafraid of taking chances, trying new things, and playing with her own image, as her roles in The Bling Ring and This Is the End proved. Long after the Harry Potter series, she’s proven her big screen chops thanks to Beauty and the Beast. Really, who else besides Watson could have brought the smart, witty, book-loving Belle to life?
What makes Watson especially inspiring, however, is her off-screen work. She has been a feminist force long before #MeToo or #TimesUp were part of the everyday lexicon. In 2014, in an earnest, powerful speech at the UN, the actress called on men to fight alongside women for gender equality as she introduced the HeForShe initiative.
“I want men to take up this mantle,” she declared, “so their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human, too.”
That address was just the beginning of Watson’s commitment to feminist causes.
Since then she has spoken at the World Economic Forum, returned to the UN, and has appeared on TIME‘s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. In 2016 Watson announced she would be taking a break from acting in order to pursue feminist activism and gave her fans one of the best non-material gifts ever by founding Our Shared Shelf, a feminist book club on Goodreads. (Lit nerd that I am, Our Shared Shelf is even more pleasing to me than Rory Gilmore’s allusion-filled high school graduation speech.)
Watson has also been an active part of Time’s Up on both sides of the pond. She brought gender violence activist Marai Larasi as her guest to this year’s Golden Globes, and played an instrumental part in crafting the BFI and BAFTA’s new anti-harassment/anti-bullying code of conduct.
Watson recently joined 190 other women from the UK film industry and signed an open letter condemning workplace harassment. She also donated £1 million (about $1.4 million USD) to UK Justice and Equality Fund, an anti-harassment campaign.
Emma Watson became a role model to me when she first donned a cloak and went to Hogwarts alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint — a decade and a half later, she’s still setting an excellent example for women of all ages. She’s a feminist in every sense of the word: she stands up for women, uses every tool at her disposal to fight for equality, and listens to world views other than her own.
Next. Women to Admire: Beyoncé. dark
Think about that. No one would blame Watson if she, like many performers, simply put out big cinematic hits and walked red carpets. Instead, she uses her considerable privilege and platform to make the world a better place for everyone. Now, that’s truly magical.