Emma Watson: Role Model

by Anna Sykes

Emma Watson, now aged 24, was not only the youngest person to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine when she was 15 but, in addition, has two A’s and eight A* GCSEs under her belt and 3 As at A Level. Furthermore, she has designed a range of clothes for underprivileged children that benefited UNICEF and she recently graduated from Brown University, U.S.A. with a Bachelor's degree in English Literature.

On top of this she is a qualified yoga and meditation teacher and has now become UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and recently spoke at the UN Headquarters in New York City promoting this importance of gender equality and received a standing ovation. On top of all of this, of course, she is best known for her role of Hermione Granger in the notorious Harry Potter movies and she is now ‘valued’ at $60 million dollars-if this isn’t impressive enough, she managed to fulfill all this whilst being under constant scrutiny from the media since age 11.

During her recent speech at the UN meeting she spoke about how she was called “bossy” for wanting to direct a play in junior school and how this was unjust-I for one can empathize with this. 

Why should we be criticized as women for wanting to take the role of a leader? She says this “confused” her but now she has taken the initiative to understand why and discovered how incidents similar to and worse than this affected so many women worldwide. 

Therefore, she has taken it upon herself to become an ambassador for the “HeForShe” campaign; to call on men to speak up for oppressed women everywhere. This is one of the first campaigns we’ve seen where women actually ‘reach out’ rather than ‘oppose’ men to gain the rights to equality-she has taken this step and realized for herself that the only way to make a change is to work together, thus meaning that men not only understand women’s suffering but also to act with us women against it.

Emma Watson is a prime role model for a vast range of people because she has worked hard to achieve her fame and now focuses her energy by using the position she’s earned in the best way possible, whether this is through targeting and promoting specific organizations or campaigns or simply supporting and voicing her views. I believe one of the primary reasons for her proactive attitude is due to her commitment to her education. Unlike many other celebrities she chose strongly to focus on her education and see it through to gaining herself a degree. Many would argue that she has enough wealth to support her for life without having to work another day, but she has chosen not do this. Why? Maybe she chose to gain wealth in a different sense, the wealth of knowledge not only in a literal sense as she now holds a degree but also she has become more worldly. What more realistic way can a celebrity experience a chance at a ‘normal’ lifestyle than through experiencing university first hand?

Overall she is a great inspiration and I hope she will resume her contributions towards helping society and raising people’s awareness towards issues.

See below to watch her “HeForShe” United Nations conference speech which has now gained the support and attraction of many other celebrities-