Emma Watson and Feminism

Today I just saw an article of a group called 4chan users, who have started a smear campaign against Emma Watson for her speech to the UN on feminism.  Part of this smear campaign is the threat of posting nude pictures of herself to the internet.  How distasteful can people get?  And why threaten someone like Emma, who is peacefully making her voice heard about a subject she cares about: women's equality and feminism?  How far will someone go to make sure a woman's voice is shut down permanently?

This corresponds to a topic I was reading in Psychology about conformity.  In society, women are expected to be the weaker sex, the submissive sex, the docile sex.  As the generations passed, women are evolving into strong, proactive, intelligent thinkers, movers and shakers, and as we all know evolution is a process in the change of the world.  Yet there are people out there, like these users, who feel by smearing Emma and her speech, they can make women like me conform to their ideals that women are supposed to earn 77 cents of every dollar a man earns and submit to male dominant ways.  When a group tries to shame us to conform to the ideal, to comply and obey, that only causes a repression in us, thinking we are wrong when there is nothing wrong in making the female voice heard about what the issues are.  That repression will only grow and then another era of a "Problem that Has No Name" will occur.  Didn't this already happen in the 1950's, manufacturers convincing women they will be happier with a house, husband, children and all the appliances she could ever wish for?

Emma's speech did not slander any groups who think differently.  What she did was speak openly about her experiences as a feminist women and what she has seen and heard of around the world, the same as any other person would.  We all have a voice and it must be heard.  My father, lord rest his soul, did not make us go through the struggles of grade school, high school and college, just for my baby sister and I to become docile housewives.  He knew my potential, even if I couldn't see it in myself.  I did not sacrifice $13,000 in a college education (and this is cheap compared to other people's college education expenses) to be told who I am and who I should be as a woman.  I will admit, I would feel threatened if this group did to me what they are trying to do to Emma, but as I am writing this now, I believe firmly that women are as strong, as capable and as competitive as men and deserve the same pay, treatment, value and respect men receive.  No woman should be ashamed for speaking out their truth. 

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