Anne Hathaway has recently been appointed as the UN’s newest Goodwill Ambassador for women, following in the footsteps of other female celebrities such as Angelina Jolie Pitt, who served as an advocate for refugees on displacement issues, Nicole Kidman, who helped bring a spotlight on violence against women, and Emma Watson, who helped start the HeforShe campaign in her role to encourage men to speak up about gender equality.

Anne Hathaway has been brought on board to spotlight what is called the “motherhood penalty”– the effect of penalizing women in terms of pay and opportunities in the workplace when they become mothers–and her aim is to help change the mindsets around mothers in the workplace and promote office policies and arrangements that support equality for women, such as affordable childcare services and shared parental leave.

Hathaway, who recently became a mother herself this past April, has long been an advocate for women’s rights. She worked with the Nike Foundation (which incidentally has given The SOLD Project grants to help further our work), to support programs empowering adolescent girls in the developing world and she traveled to Kenya and Ethiopia to speak out against sexual violence. She also lent her voice to the CNN documentary Girl Rising on the importance of female education.

She wrote about her experience, and on what girls in Africa feared more than the drought crisis, which you can read here on The Daily Beast.

In regards to her appointment, Hathaway said, “Significant progress has already been made, but it is time that we collectively intensify our efforts and ensure that true equality is finally realized.”

If you want to follow her journey, you can find her active on Instagram.