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Sample Essay Emma Watson

Emma Watson garnered attention in 2014 for her speech to the United Nations on gender equality and her role as a spokesperson for the HeForShe campaign. In the speech, she seeks to reclaim feminism and invite men to fight for gender equality. She establishes her credibility through sharing her personal experiences with gender stereotypes. She engages the audience emotionally by telling compelling stories of how gender stereotypes have negatively impacted people's lives. She structures her argument logically by redefining feminism and using parallel structures to emphasize her message that changing gender roles could benefit both men and women.

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39 views

Sample Essay Emma Watson

Emma Watson garnered attention in 2014 for her speech to the United Nations on gender equality and her role as a spokesperson for the HeForShe campaign. In the speech, she seeks to reclaim feminism and invite men to fight for gender equality. She establishes her credibility through sharing her personal experiences with gender stereotypes. She engages the audience emotionally by telling compelling stories of how gender stereotypes have negatively impacted people's lives. She structures her argument logically by redefining feminism and using parallel structures to emphasize her message that changing gender roles could benefit both men and women.

Uploaded by

Lara Smith
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Speaking to Convince: Sample answer - choosing Emma Watson

Emma Watson is most commonly known for her role in the Harry Potter films, but in the fall of
2014, Watson garnered attention as a spokesperson for the HeForShe-campaign. Watson
spoke to the United Nations on the importance of engaging men in the cause of gender
equality. In this speech, Watson seeks to reclaim feminism and to invite men to fight for a
feminist society. This paper analyses her speech based on the three modes of rhetoric: ethos,
pathos, and logos.

Ethos, the first mode of rhetoric, builds on the credibility of the speaker. Watson draws on her
own experiences as a child where she was suddenly facing gendered stereotypes at the age of
eight. Suddenly, she writes, she was “being called ‘bossy,’ because I wanted to direct the
plays we would put on for our parents - but the boys were not.” She continues to build upon
her own experiences of growing into her teens and seeing more direct and indirect
consequences of gender inequality. She seems aware that her role as a film star might seem
irrelevant for her role as a spokesperson for the HeForShe-campaign. But Watson challenges
this as she emphasizes the role every decent human being should take upon themselves -
namely to fight for justice. Drawing on the English philosopher Edmund Burke, she tells her
audience that she asked herself “if not me, who, if not now, when.”

The second mode of rhetoric, pathos, is about engaging the audience at an emotional level.
Watson plainly states early in her speech that “I need your help.” As such, Watson appeals to
the sense of decency in her audience. She continues to do so when she speaks of the rights of
women and men to be treated fairly. She appeals to their compassionate sides by telling
compelling stories her audience can relate to: stories of women and men that have faced
gender stereotypes and suffered because of them. She tells about how her father’s role in
raising her is devalued, of men suffering from mental stress and anxieties because they do
not conform to society’s standards. Watson shows the connection with gender stereotypes
and misery by using specific examples. For instance, she refers to studies that reveal how
suicide causes more deaths among British men than any other cause of death. In the end, she
appeals to her audience’s conscience when she ends her speech by turning the questions she
asked herself to her listeners: “…ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when?”

Last, logos is a rhetorical mode that deals with the structure and logic of your argument.
Watson expresses her concern that the word “feminism” has become a negative word
associated with man hatred. Seeking to reclaim feminism, she contrasts the common
understanding of the word with how feminism is defined politically and ideologically. Watson
frequently uses parallel structure in order to get her message across. For instance, she
writes: “If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel
compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be
controlled.” Another example is that she repeats the words “I’ve seen…,” making her listeners
pay attention to what she says.

Watson’s HeForShe speech became a viral phenomenon that launched Watson as a new
feminist icon. Undoubtedly, her status as a major film star helped, but her use of rhetorical
modes brought her message out in an efficient and elegant way. Watson used ethos when she
drew on her own personal experiences, made clever use of pathos with her compelling stories
of the effects of gender stereotypes, and she used logos when she redefines feminism. Her
choice of language highlights her point.

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