Most of us remember Emma Watson as the young, spunky nerd Hermione Granger in our beloved Harry Potter childhoods. These days though Hermione has been a very busy girl. In recent years, Emma Watson has taken a step back from the spotlight to focus on more social issues that plague our world.
As we've seen over the years, not all child actors take off from acting to go after an education. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and Selena Gomez whom have not, to my knowledge and credible sources, attended college. In fact, child stars often revert to homeschooling instead of the traditional school experience. Before filming started on the last film, Emma enrolled in Brown University to get a bachelor's degree in English. While attending Brown, she did take a pause in schooling when the final Harry Potter movie was filmed. After that, though, she thoroughly committed to getting her degree and graduated Brown in 2014.
Not only did she graduate with an English degree, but Emma Watson has made strides in equal rights. With her HeForShe campaign, she aims to reconstruct the meaning of being a "feminist" in modern society. Her aim is to encourage more males to participate and ask for equal gender rights. She has done several speeches for the United Nations to encourage gender equality. On heforshe.org, Emma has six areas where a person could choose to look at in terms of gender inequality — violence, health, education, identity, work and politics.
She has made great strides in her campaign and has committed herself to being the best activist she can. Her website says in the United States there are over 18,000 committed members who are female and a little over 9,000 who are male. By taking this issue to males, she is effectively crossing the divide and asking for males not to look at it as a feminist movement but an all-encompassing gender movement. She doesn't want equality just for females but for whoever identifies as human.
Emma Watson will always be the person we all wish we were. Whether it be as spunky sidekick Hermione or the cool cover of Vogue, she will always be the inspiration that drives us all.
If you would like to know more about the HeforShe campaign, please visit the website at heforshe.org where you can sign up to be an active member to fight against inequality.
