So I was pretty furious about the whole iCloud incident. I went on a massive rant about these women, namely Jennifer Lawrence, having their personal pictures exposed to the world. They didn’t ask for it and they certainly hadn’t given us access prior to that imbecile getting them and posting them on 4chan.
And here’s the thing. Jennifer Lawrence can never take those back. She has effectively been cyber raped. For the rest of her life she doesn’t get to choose who has seen her naked body. It is irrelevant whether she was silly for putting them onto a site [iCloud] that could be hacked. I think until this unfortunate incident occurred, the majority of non-tech savvy people probably didn’t quite understand what it meant to say yes to iCloud storing photos and sharing photo streams with multiple Apple devices. Why did she or the other targeted females have to be any different. Side note: I was even more frustrated reading the comments below the aforementioned Independent article, mainly because the majority of the inappropriate and inconsidered comments appear to have been made by men.
Now I’m not for a second suggesting that it would be okay if it was men who had their pictures exposed on the internet, but so far as I have been made aware, it was mainly targeting very well-known and uber successful females. And every time any names have been mentioned it has been female actresses, musicians and celebrities. Not male ones.
Which brings me to Emma Watson. Just this week Emma proudly stood up to talk in New York as the UN Goodwill Ambassador for Women and I think her speech was superb. Her talk is part the #HeForShe campaign – a solidarity movement with a shared commitment to fight against inequalities that still exist between women and men. It’s the first of it’s kind. I am an avid supporter, and even though I’ve never considered myself to be a feminist I loved the way she defined exactly what feminism is (it’s really very simple).
As Emma explains “Feminism by definition is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities…”. What Emma is doing is getting behind a topic that should shouldn’t even be an issue anymore. But it is. And I truly believe that if we stand up and make a statement and be loud and proud, changes will prevail. They have to. This isn’t the 17th century people. A woman working on a television set with the same amount of lines as a man should get the same pay. And this applies to any industry. But it goes much further. It goes for every facet of life for women and girls, in every country of the world. We shouldn’t be made to feel sexualised. Female circumcision should be a thing of the past. Women should feel that they have the same rights as men. We shouldn’t need sites and tweets like Casting Call Woe because there shouldn’t be casting calls posted like that around the world. We should feel safe in castings, and in life in general.
So I say, yes to #HeForShe and I actively promote equality amongst men and women, boys and girls. I say no to idiots posting photos of women without asking. I say no to women being treated in such a way that they’re too scared to walk in certain areas for fear of being attacked, or dress in a certain way for fear of being looked at.
Thank you to so many men, like Forest Whitaker, who have already loudly and proudly tweeted and got behind this fantastic campaign for global change.
And the perpetrators who posted those photos should be exposed. It’s a shame that they can’t return the favour by posting pictures of them on Times Square and Piccadilly Circus just for a day so they know what it feels like to have their privates shown off to the rest of the world without their permission. It is NOT okay.
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To find out more visit: http://www.heforshe.org/ or follow them on Twitter.
And check out the work of Rantic who are trying to get 4Chan closed down.
Well said. Totally agree.
Well said, Angela! I agree wholeheartedly. We need to stand up *together* and make some BIG changes in our industry and in our world. x
Great article. Thanks for writing such a great piece about something that affects us all. Solidarity = change.