Emma Watson has difficulty with the word ‘feminism’

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Emma Watson discussed how the word “feminist” can be troublesome.

Whilst promoting her upcoming film, Beauty and the Beast, the self-proclaimed feminist explained that the term “feminist” can be intimidating to men who don’t understand the word’s meaning.

Watson said:

“If I were to say I was a feminist, it would be [perceived as] a personal attack on you as a man as opposed to a patriarchal system, or something much larger than an individual person,”

And also, no one likes to feel— they feel that there’s blame attached to that word, and I think that’s very difficult to deal with.”

Watson went on to break down the word “feminist” and why it’s actually for everyone.

“I think the word is really difficult because it seems to inherently address a preferential treatment of the feminine over the masculine because it has the feminine in the word, and I think that’s a real oversight and misunderstanding,” said Watson.

“This isn’t just girls are better than boys, boys are better than girls. This is just everyone deserves a fair chance.”

The ex-Harry Potter star explained how some men think they can’t be feminists,

“Some of the best feminists I know are men. But others think it’s not masculine…I joke about the man box, that you can only be a man if you fulfill these certain qualities and you stay within this square.”

Watson finished the interview by addressing her work with HeforShe.

“I think that there’s a lot of missing gaps…there’s a lot of missing data about women and girls….everything from sexual violence, to FDM, to literacy rates…this year I want to focus on the statistics.”