{"id":189624,"date":"2014-09-26T10:46:01","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T10:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/09\/26\/re-emma-watson-and-criticism-of-her-being-a\/"},"modified":"2014-09-26T10:46:01","modified_gmt":"2014-09-26T10:46:01","slug":"re-emma-watson-and-criticism-of-her-being-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/09\/26\/re-emma-watson-and-criticism-of-her-being-a\/","title":{"rendered":"re: Emma Watson and criticism of her being a privileged white woman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/stirringwind.tumblr.com\/post\/98331161245\/re-emma-watson-and-criticism-of-her-being-a-privileged\" target=\"_blank\">stirringwind<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>it\u2019s exclusive to say leaders of feminism can only be marginalised: non-white, trans, lesbian etc. I\u2019m not white and while I agree Emma isn\u2019t THE representative of feminism, she can be ONE OF the representatives\u00a0of feminism.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Not the same thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Also, I\u2019ve seen some criticise Emma Watson because her speech gets more attention than others. You are criticising the <em>wrong<\/em> target. You should be criticising <em>society<\/em> and its inequalities that lead to the reason Emma gets more attention. Not so much Emma herself.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I do not want to be part of a kind of feminism that wants to exclude a big proportion of the world and say they cannot speak because they are too privileged. Because that is saying oppression is a contest and that only the people worse off should speak.That is wrong because then we are not using the standard of human rights and equality but the standard of oppression as a benchmark.\u00a0Neither do we have the luxury to exclude people who have enormous soft power and ability to spread our message. I have a problem if the UN cancelled Malala\u2019s speech so Emma could speak. It is fair to talk about representation. But I have no problem with what the UN did because that didn\u2019t happen, and UN ambassadors haven\u2019t <em>just<\/em> been white women like Emma Watson. Some others:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/08e31d571162e05cb71a8ee5550f4cb6\/tumblr_inline_ncf99uGANG1rfyc6s.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Waris Dirie- she\u2019s a Somali supermodel. She is a UN ambassador against female genital mutilation- because she suffered it herself.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/750d60b412f25f95c4c7936173a9cb4e\/tumblr_inline_ncf9tlxbgZ1rfyc6s.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Or Aung San Suu Kyi? Activist for democracy who was under house arrest in Burma for decades before she was finally freed- UNAIDS ambassador for Zero Discrimination<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/884ec95532b3bba8a482a7eb0a48944e\/tumblr_inline_ncfa76OVN71rfyc6s.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Botswana model Mpule Kwelagobe, UNFPA ambassador<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/ad6a223d875f94469029bae94b99b79b\/tumblr_inline_ncfbm0Y7Lt1rfyc6s.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol of Thailand, another UN Goodwill ambassador for women<\/p>\n<p>And, of course, Malala Yousoufzai:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/2a2135d06fffed75aee225ed26b3d84a\/tumblr_inline_ncf9li7SVY1rfyc6s.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Do all these women have something in common, that the average woman being oppressed usually doesn\u2019t have? Sure, they\u2019re ambassadors because they\u2019re all famous for various reasons and have escaped the circumstances where they were formerly oppressed in the case of Waris, Malala and Aung San Suu Kyi. Many of them are beautiful and comparatively more privileged than the people they advocate for. But them being famous is the entire point of UN Goodwill Ambassadors- to attract attention to a good cause. That\u2019s how the world works, and the UN works within that reality- where there is no luxury to reject using high-profile people willing to use their soft power for good. And Emma was chosen precisely because she is that kind of person with enormous influence. I am not \u201cwhite\u201d and I am glad (<em>glad<\/em>, not bowing and scraping to her- just <em>glad<\/em>) Emma has decided to use her fame for this end- unlike what many other wealthy people choose to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>stirringwind: it\u2019s exclusive to say leaders of feminism can only be marginalised: non-white, trans, lesbian etc. I\u2019m not white and while I agree Emma isn\u2019t THE representative of feminism, she can be ONE OF the representatives\u00a0of feminism.\u00a0 Not the same thing.\u00a0 Also, I\u2019ve seen some criticise Emma Watson because her speech gets more attention than &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/09\/26\/re-emma-watson-and-criticism-of-her-being-a\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;re: Emma Watson and criticism of her being a privileged white woman&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[208,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}