Malala Yousafzai has told Emma Watson that the actress's speech to world leaders as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Women made her change her mind about not describing herself as a feminist.
18-year-old Yousafzai, a Nobel Prize winner, said she initially thought feminism was a "tricky word" but now believes everyone should be a feminist after watching Watson's rousing speech at the launch of her #HeForShe campaign last year.
The campaign aimed to include men in the quest for gender equality and Watson received support from many male celebrities such as Harry Styles, Steve Carell, Tom Hiddleston, Douglas Booth and Simon Pegg to name a few.
Watson interviewed Malala at the premiere of her film, He Named Me Malala, and during their conversation Yousafzai detailed her thought process on calling herself a feminist.
"It has been a tricky word. When I heard it the first time I heard some negative responses and some positive ones. I hesitated in saying am I feminist or not?" she said. "Then after hearing your speech I decided there's no way and there's nothing wrong by calling yourself a feminist. So I'm a feminist and we all should be a feminist because feminism is another word for equality."
Malala and her father
Yousafzai added that her own father had been an "example to all men" and classed himself as a feminist.
Honoured to interview Malala yesterday: https://t.co/1G83qjgvJn #notjustamovieamovement #HeNamedMeMalala @MalalaFund pic.twitter.com/LVaKz2A60N
— Emma Watson (@EmWatson) November 5, 2015
Watson posted a video of the interview on her Facebook page and said she found Yousafzai's admission "moving" and revealed that she had intended on asking her about feminism when she was preparing for the interview, but didn't because the inspirational teen had never publicly identified as one.
Watson said in her post, "To give you some background, I had initially planned to ask Malala whether or not she was a feminist but then researched to see whether she had used this word to describe herself. Having seen that she hadn't, I decided to take the question out before the day of our interview. To my utter shock Malala put the question back into one of her own answers and identified herself. Maybe feminist isn't the easiest word to use... but she did it anyway."
Read Watson's full post below.
