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Anne Hathaway Performed a Great Monologue at the United Nations on International Women’s Day

Photo: Jason Kempin/Getty Images

Anne Hathaway has never, not once, stood in front of a room full of people with a microphone at her lips and not delivered. That hasn’t been borne out by the scientific method yet, but if you set a team of researchers out to answer the question, “Will Anne Hathaway give it her all in any room?” they would surely come back with a yes. Today that room was in the United Nations, where Hathaway advocated for paid parental leave, including paternity leave, and it was monologue befitting an Academy Award winner. Her hand choreography is forceful, but not alienating. Her passion is clear, but does not take the spotlight from the issue. Her intonation plays like a song for the righteous new parents out there. “Maternity leave, or any workplace policy based on gender, can — at this moment in history — only ever be a gilded cage,” says Hathaway. “We now know it creates a perception of women as being inconvenient to the workplace. We now know it chains men to an emotionally limited path.” Do yourself a favor and listen to the way she hits the word know. It feels like some kind of imperceptible incantation meant to spur her audience to action. Even Edgar Ramirez, who is conspicuously visible in the background of this video, seems frozen in place during her remarks, capable only of blinking.

Anne Hathaway Performed a Great Monologue at the UN