Shay Mackey

Jurisprudence

Will Buchanan

12 March 2017

Emma Watson, Feminism, and the Law

One of the greatest social issues facing society today is gender

inequality. Women across the world are being under paid, under educated,

and treated as lesser people. While we have made great strides as a global

society, there is still so much room for growth. Looking at this issue through

a jurisprudential lens, we are presented with dilemmas in natural law and the

rights women are afforded.

In September 2014 feminist and famed actress Emma Watson gave a

speech at the United Nations headquarters, in New York city unveiling the

UN's new campaign He For She. Watson began her acting career in the early

2000s with the release of the first Harry Potter film, The Sorcerers Stone.

She continued on to star in seven more Harry Potter films and as well as

several other high profile movies. Despite her cinematic success Watson

wanted to continue her education, and graduated from Brown university in

2014 with a degree in English Literature. The same year she was appointed

as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, where she began

advocating for womens rights and gender equality.

One of her projects as a UN ambassador was unveiling the He For She

campaign. The mission of the project is to [invite] people everywhere to

come together as equal partners to craft a shared vision of a gender equal

world and implement specific, locally relevant solutions for the good of all of

humanity. HeForShe is inviting people around the world to stand together to

create a bold, visible force for gender equality. And it starts by taking action

right now to create a gender equal world.1 Watsons now famous speech

was met with both praise and criticism. Her critics claimed that she had not

been inclusive enough, failing to address minority groups like the LGBTQ

community and people of color. Some of the more extreme opponents

actually sent Watson threats as a result of the speech. However, the hate

was overshadowed by the countless accolades she received. Renowned

activist Malala Yousafzai told Watson in an interview that, after hearing your

speech I decided theres no way and theres nothing wrong by calling

yourself a feminist. So Im a feminist and we all should be a feminist because

feminism is another word for equality.2 Overall the speech served its

purpose to introduce the campaign: 1.3 million people have committed to

join the program and work to overcome gender inequality, and there have

been thousands of events to support the initiative.

Feminism as a movement can be traced back to the 1848 with the

Seneca Falls convention, a [place] to discuss the social, civil, and religious

condition and rights of woman". This first wave of feminism focused on the

1 "Stand Together." UN Women. Accessed March 10, 2017.

http://www.heforshe.org/en.
2 WITW Staff. WITW Staff to New York Times newsgroup, "Malala Tells Emma
Watson She Identifies as a Feminist, Thanks to Her."
temperance, abolition, and suffrage movements. There was a second coming

of the movement in the late sixties until the mid-nineties that was driven

predominantly by reproductive rights, gender inequality, and sexuality. That

brings us to today, what many refer to as the third wave of feminism. Today

the key parts of the movement are body acceptance, sexuality, and gender

equality.

Miss Watson begins her speech by providing the definition of feminism.

She states that it is the belief that men and women should have equal

rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social

equality of the sexes. She continues by saying,

[I] think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male

counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions

about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my

behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. I think it is

right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. These rights

I consider to be human rights Men, I would like to take this

opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your

issue, too3

Watsons ideal world is one where men and women are completely equal, but

is true equality possible? Women and minority groups have been subjugated

since creation. One of the earliest examples of this is seen in the Judeo-

Christian story of creation where the woman is formed from the rib of man to

3 Watson, Emma. "He For She." Speech, September 20, 2014. UN Women.
serve as his companion. The accepted thought for most of history was that

women was created solely for the purpose of serving the patriarch. Other

biblical versus like 1 Timothy 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to

usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence, and Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord4

support the claim that women should be treated as less than men.

Legal scholar Cass Sunstein addresses the legal relationship between

women and the bible in a book chapter entitled sex equality versus religion.

Cass explores the correlation between gender bias and religion in America.

There is good reason to believe that some of the most pernicious forms of

sex discrimination are a result of the practices of religious institutions, which

can produce internalized norms of subordination. These internalized norms

help produce a caste system founded on sex. Both boys and girls learn a

great deal about proper roles from what religion teaches them. Of course

many religious institutions are committed to sex equality, but this is a hardly

universal commitment

For those who object to discriminatory views and practices, the remedy

of exit the right of women to leave a religious order is crucial. But

the right to leave will not be enough when young girls have been

taught in such a way as to be unable to scrutinize the practices with

which they have grown up. Peoples preferences and beliefs do not

reflect freedom when they are an outgrowth of unjust background

4 The Holy Bible: King James Version

 conditions; in such circumstances it is not even clear whether the

relevant preferences are authentically theirs.5

Religious thought has a large impact on modern day society, from our morals

to our customs. The effect that religiosity has had on the way women are

viewed and oppressed will not easily be undone. I find it difficult to believe

that there could ever be true equality between men and women because of

this. Overcoming religious gender bias will be key in progressing towards true

equality.

The primary goal of He For She is to engage men in recognizing the

negative effects of sexism, and to empower them to use their voice to

advocate for women. Towards the end of her speech, Watson quotes

Statesman Edmund Burke, stating All that is needed for the forces of evil to

triumph is for good men and women to do nothing. This idea parallels

Martin Luther King Jr.s sentiment from Letter from Birmingham Jail where he

explains,

I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely

disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the

regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the

stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku

Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order

than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of

tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who

5 Sunstein, Cass R. Designing Democracy : What Constitutions Do. New York:

Oxford University Press, 2001.
 constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't

agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically feels

that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by

the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a

"more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good

will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of

ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright

rejection.6

King, Burke, and Watson all agree that the greatest danger to the progress of

social injustices is the moderate. The people who believe that they cannot

make a difference with their actions, or those who sit around and wait for

someone else to make the first step. To make progress towards the ideal of

equality, everyone must engage. We cannot afford to have moderates if we

want to be equal.

Feminists would argue that it is the most natural for the sexes to be

treated equally. There is nothing to qualify women as genetically inferior, and

social inferiority is purely a social construct. The principles of natural law give

feminism, or in other words, equality, moral legitimacy. Can it ever be

considered natural or moral to actively oppress half of mankind? Natural law

establishes a standard for women in its combination of morality and ethics.

The structure of modern day society does not support the archaic Judeo-

Christian law presented in the bible, rendering its moral laws irrelevant.

6 King, Martin Luther. 1994. Letter from the Birmingham jail. San Francisco:
Harper San Francisco.
Humans naturally gravitate to divine law through reason, and the

advancement of sex equality brings mankind closer to the pre-established

law. The progress made through feminism and the Civil Rights movement has

elevated thought closer to the divine, therefore laws and social norms need

to advance to match.

We have seen evidence of progression towards this higher ideal. The

passage of the fourteenth amendment in 1868 stated that anyone who was

born in the United States was a citizen. The nineteenth amendment gave

women the constitutional right to vote. The supreme court case Roe v. Wade

allowed women the freedom to choose whether to carry a child or terminate

the pregnancy. Society can continue taking steps forward towards feminism

by coming together to acknowledge the need for equal rights. If men

participate in campaigns like He For She and break away from the religious

traditionalism that suppresses women, we will eventually attain equality.

Bibliography

Finnis, John. "Natural Law Theories." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

edited by Edward N. Zalta. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2016.
Accessed March 10, 2017. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-theories.

King, Martin Luther. 1994. Letter from the Birmingham jail. San Francisco: Harper San
Francisco.

Rampton, Martha. "Four Waves of Feminism." Pacific University Oregon (blog).

Entry posted October 25, 2015. Accessed March 12, 2017.
https://www.pacificu.edu/about-us/news-events/four-waves-feminism.

Raymond Wacks, Understanding jurisprudence: an introduction to legal theory (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2015).

The Holy Bible: King James Version

"Stand Together." UN Women. Accessed March 10, 2017. http://www.heforshe.org/en.

Sunstein, Cass R. Designing Democracy : What Constitutions Do. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed March
11, 2017).

Watson, Emma. "He For She." Speech, September 20, 2014. UN Women.
http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9emma-watson-gender-equality-
is-your-issue-too.

WITW Staff. WITW Staff to New York Times newsgroup, "Malala Tellls Emma Watson
She Identifies as a Feminist, Thanks to Her." Accessed November 5, 2015.
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/11/05/malala-tells-emma-
watson-she-identifies-as-a-feminist-thanks-to-her/.