This week, millennial actress and recent college graduate Emma Watson gave a powerful speech to the United Nations, launching the UN’s new solidarity campaign called He for She, which urges men to look at gender equality as more than a women’s issue — and for women to stop thinking that feminism is anti-men.

According to Vanity Fair, “Watson is potentially in an even better position than many of her peers to [to abolish the ‘us vs. them’ mentality of feminism being about ‘man-hating’]. Her role as Hermione Granger, the universally adored heroine of the Harry Potter series, gives her an automatic in with male and female millennials.”

The poignant key message of her “game-changing” speech, and the unique platform of He for She, begins around the five-minute mark in this video:

As Betsy Myers, executive director of Bentley University’s Center for Women and Business, often points out: both genders must contribute to greater equality for women. It seems that millennial men are rightly being targeted to get the genders working together for shared responsibility, equality, and unity more than ever before. 

TL;DR: “It is high time that we view gender on a spectrum, instead of two sets of opposing ideals.”

Also this week, the White House launched the It’s On Us campaign to combat sexual assault on campus, urging men to take responsibility for preventing and reversing the statistic that one in five female college students will be the victim of rape — just on the heels of sports commentator James Brown’s passionate plea for more men to view their “silence [as] deafening and deadly” in the greater issue of domestic violence, particularly in light of the Ray Rice scandal. Research by Bentley and others suggests that traits more than skills give men an edge in their careers. Abuse of women by men, albeit practiced by a small minority, is a trait, make that an outrage, that has no place in society.

Finally, recent research by the Mayflower Moving Company shows that millennial men are more likely to move for their wife’s job than any previous generation, and many millennial men are even choosing to become stay-at-home dads while their wives go back to work. Studies like this hint at a Gen Y value base already ingrained with deep notion of gender parity, shared support of each other, and equal sacrifices for the greater good. But can — and will — millennials continue to push us even farther toward a gender-neutral society? 

April Lane is a freelance writer. 

Photo credit: HeForShe