What I Was Thinking.

What I Really Want to Say When I Gush About Aaron Sorkin

Before beginning this post, I'd like to pose a little something that I found on twitter.  But seriously, discuss.

PPS (pre-pre-script), I love The West Wing, I greatly enjoy Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and I like Sports Night, the most innocent of the Sorkin family of behind-the-scenes shows.  I haven't seen any of his films.  I need to.

I'm disenchanted with Sorkin partly because I believe people on the internet.  Based on his interviews he's pompous, he recycles dialogue and characters from ALL his shows and films, and if he couldn't hide behind his brilliant characters who say all the right things, he'd be seen as a liberal bully. 

He's writing women pretty poorly in this show so far.  I'm not looking for the ideal woman, I'm not looking for a brilliant feminist, and I don't expect him to ever write a female character as well as Joss Whedon thinks he does (another conversation for another time).  Caveats aside, as a writer for The Daily put it, "forget everything you learned from Keith Olbermann during your research for the show. If she’ll have you, spend a little time shadowing Rachel Maddow instead. Maybe that way, you’ll quit treating women like frivolous narrative ornaments who only act with agency if it’s in furtherance of a male ego." We should expect this from him.  I'll give him credit here:  when Emily Mortimer tells Olivia Munn the real reasons she's being hired (ep 2), she's honest.  Sexist, but honest.

He should be writing more women like C.J. Cregg and Ainsley Hayes, not women like Natalie Hurley and Dana Whitacre.  Yes, Natalie and Dana are closer parallels to Maggie and Mackenzie.  But a decade later, the characters should have evolved because the world has evolved just a tiny bit.  We get it.  It's a man's world out there.  Most jobs worth watching on television are male-dominated.  But you know what?  If we know this to be true, then Sorkin's female characters know it too and shouldn't be written as though every move is a battle to stay afloat in a man's world.

None of this is to say that Sorkin is being untrue to himself or to us.  I think he writes with honesty, but that he's honestly a pompous jerk masquarading as someone who likes to pretend that he writes "corny, you know?"

Also despite the little end bit with the reveal about Mac actually being in the audience at Will's Northwestern speech (that bit made me all happy and starry-eyed for a few minutes), his heavy-handed rants and his idealistic rants and his rants rants rants are no longer cute and they're getting less smart.  They're just heavy-handed and idealistic.

Basically, Aaron Sorkin is smarter than a lot of us but he makes sure we know it.  And Sorkin gives credit where credit is due, but these days he thinks white middle-aged men are the only people who deserve that credit.

Aaron Sorkin, you are smarter than me.  I know it and you know it.  That's fine.  What isn't fine is that you treat me as though you are smarter than me and you know it.  Sometimes I'm smart, too (read: different genitals, different perspective).

Part of the problem is Sorkin fans expect more.  The West Wing was just what we didn't know we needed - an incredibly smart president and a staff so perfectly picked that we liberals involved with politics couldn't have done it better if we had written ourselves into the story.  We needed The West Wing increasingly more as 2000 came and went.  Nobody asked for a "fantasy about newscasters," or however Sorkin describes his vision of this newest show.  Sorkin is giving us a great cast, cute little metaphors about fantasy and idealism at every turn (Atlantis, Don Quixote, etc), funny quips and fast talking/fast walking.  But we didn't ask for it.  This comes easy to Sorkin.  So now we're asking for more.

Imagine me saying this and walking very fast down a hallway.

Day 7 Memorial

Facts of the Rwandan genocide.

 In 2002 the government put the death toll for the ethnic slaughter at 1,074,017 with Tutsis as 94% of the dead.

March 13, 2010.  Day 7 of the 100 days of remembrance of the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Teaching Genocide.

Genocide [jen-uh-sahyd]. –noun. the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

A group of radical pro-lifers called the Genocide Awareness Project are on Ohio State's campus this week.  They display enormous signs with blown-up pictures of mangled, bloody aborted fetuses (they are not "dead babies," they were never alive nor were they babies), and images from the Holocaust.  That's right, they compare abortion to the Holocaust.  They pervert the word "genocide" to fit their agenda.  The images are grotesque, but pretty standard.  Most of the pictures of aborted fetuses are of third-trimester abortions, which aren't legal in the United States.  Meaning the pictures are old and manipulated.  Their tactic is shock and fear; they believe that if women knew what aborted fetuses look like, maybe they won't get abortions.  I'd like to think women do their research before they make a decision like choosing whether or not to let a pregnancy come to term.  I know I would.  VOX, the Voices of Planned Parenthood group on campus, counter-protested with petitions and signs.  They also handed out condoms, pins, and stickers shaped like condoms that said, "just wear it."

The pro-lifers have the right to say whatever they want, even if we don't agree with their hateful, ignorant, woman-hating tactics.

What really pisses me off about this group of people is their intentional misuse of the word "genocide."  I made signs that I plan to use on Wednesday to spread some truths about what "genocide" really means.

The OSU club Right To Life purposely brought the Genocide Awareness Project to campus during Holocaust awareness week.  This is an insult to the tens of millions of people who were murdered in genocides this century alone.  Let's take a look back in time and learn about genocide:

1915-1918: The Armenian
Genocide considered the prototype for future genocides in one of the bloodiest centuries of modern history.  Over 1,500,000 Armenians, about half the Armenian population, were killed by Ottoman Turkey during WWI.

1939-1945: The Holocaust 6,000,000 Jews and more than 5,000,000 others considered "undesirables" were killed by Nazi Germany in Europe during WWII.

1975-1979: The Cambodian Killing Fields 1,200,000 Cambodians were killed by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge political party.

1994: Rwandan Genocide In a 4-month period, 800,000 Tutsis killed by ethnic Hutu militias.

2004-?: Genocide in Sudan Janjaweed, government-backed Arab militias, have engaged in campaigns to displace and wipe out entire communities of African tribal farmers.  Nearly 300,000 civilians have died and some 1.6 million have been forced from their homes.

When the Genocide Convention was passed by the United Nations in 1948, the world said, "Never again."

In the twentieth century "never again" became "again and again." The promise the United Nations made was broken, as again and again, genocides and other forms of mass murder killed 170 million people, more than all the international wars of the twentieth century combined. (via the Genocide Education Project - "Learning the past, building the future.")

keep thinking, keep acting.

http://agahozo-shalom.org/

www.savedarfur.org/

For Those of You Who Don't Know...

I'm going to attempt to fill you all in on the many upcoming events this spring.  If any of you remember Bill Nye the Science Guy, he had a segment on his show called "Did You Know That?"  The segment put 30 seconds on the clock and told a quick and interesting science fact.  This entry is neither quick nor science-y, but it's super-informative and will hopefully give you some new ideas for how you can give back to your community this spring.

Lady GayGay

When I got back from class this afternoon (on a very busy, stressful day), I visited the fan site for Lady Gaga (I'm a huge fan).  She had a post about a boy named Cole who was sent to the principal's office of his Greenbrier, Tennessee school for wearing an "I (heart) Lady Gay Gay" shirt.  This happened April 6.  

For those of you who don't know...

For those of you who don't know, April 16 is the National Day of Silence. Hundreds of thousands of students take a vow of silence for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students that experience discrimination and bullying in schools.

Anyway...

Anyway, Cole has been getting a lot of attention, both positive and negative.  He wrote a note on Facebook discussing his strong sense of pride and identity, two things he says he will never compromise.  He was told by teachers and several harassing bloggers that "school is not the place to display your sexuality," to which he answered, "then it also shouldn't be the place to display your religion, your political beliefs or your Southern pride."

Want to learn more?

Read the article about Greenbrier High School's actions against Cole's self-expression.

The situation in Sudan.

After some facebook updating, I checked my e-mail. I'd received an email from one of the many advocacy newsletters to which I subscribe.  This e-mail was from the Save Darfur Coalition.

For those of you who don't know...

 For those of you who don't know, the area of Sudan known as the Darfur region is experiencing a genocide that has been going on for about six years now.  People across the Darfur region are homeless and living in displacement camps, some of which are miles away from natural resources.  Women must leave the camps daily and risk rape and murder to fetch water for their children in the displacement camps.  

The Religious Action Center and the Save Darfur Coalition held a rally Washington, D.C. in April of 2005.  About 20 members of the Jewish community in Columbus organized a bus, and I attended the rally, where I heard Elie Wiesel, George Clooney, Barack Obama, and other activists speak about the atrocities in Darfur.  April of 2006 I attended a social justice seminar called L'Taken, also in Washington, D.C. where I lobbied and spoke to my representative about getting the United States and the United Nations to intervene in Darfur.

Anyway...

Anyway, I received this e-mail from the Save Darfur Coalition.  This Sunday, April 11, Sudan will have its first multi-party elections in 25 years.  Of course, there's always complications.  Sudan is still in the midst of a civil war which is preying on unarmed women and children, using rape as a weapon.

Want to learn more?

Click here to learn more about Sudan's first "free and fair" elections.  Also, April 16, in addition to being the Day of Silence, is also Darfur Awareness Day - at least at Ohio State.

Speaking of Sunday, April 11th...

This Sunday, April 11th, 2010 is Yom Hashoa, or Holocaust Remembrance day.  At Ohio State, all of next week is Holocaust Remembrance Week.  I don't need to tell you the details of the Holocaust - 13 million murdered, 6 million of them Jews, while the world stood idly by.

This quote is featured in the Holocaust Museum in D.C., and can also be found in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Never Again-Again.
 

For those of you who don't know...

For those of you who don't know, April 7 began the 16th commemoration of another global atrocity - the 100 days of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.  I've mentioned this before - the Rwandan genocide took the lives of around 800,000 Rwandans and left 1.2 million children without parents, one of the largest orphan populations in the world.  Over 65% of Rwanda's population is under the age of 25.  The median age of Rwanda's total population is 18.7 years.  The hundreds of thousands of rapes that took place after the genocide ended left tens of thousands of women with HIV or AIDS.

 One of the ways Rwanda is slowly being rebuilt is through the creation of the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village.  The ASYV, started two years ago by South African native and current Jewish New Yorker Anne Heyman, is a place of residence for 250 Rwandan teenagers orphaned by the 1994 Rwandan genocide.  As you may have read if you followed my blog last year, I visited the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village in June of 2009.

The Village is based on Yemin Orde, a village in Israel which housed young escapees of the Holocaust and is now home to Israeli youth and kids from all over the world.

I still keep in touch with some of the friends I made there - there's a computer lab in the village, and a few of the kids have Facebook accounts.  They keep me updated on the changes going on in their new home.  I miss Africa so much.  If I'm having a really bad day, I can go back and look at my pictures from the Village and I feel better knowing there are people in the world who still want to make a difference. Margaret Mead is right - it only takes a small group of committed citizens to change the world.  The Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village is unique in Africa, and the school in the Village has become one of the best in Rwanda.  The kids are motivated and optimistic, and have big dreams for their future and the future of their country.

You can read my blog posts about my time in Rwanda, and I have a few albums of pictures up on Facebook as well.

Anyway...

Anyway, the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village is amazing, and donating to the village is a really meaningful way to remember the dead and to honor the living.  Visit http://agahozo-shalom.org/ to donate and to learn more.

Relay For Life

Relay For Life is an event sponsored by the American Cancer Society. It's a 24-hour fundraising event to raise money for cancer research.  Ohio State's Relay For Life is Saturday, May 8 to Sunday, May 9.  OSU has 110 teams, 903 participants, and has raised almost $30,000 so far.

For those of you who don't know...

We've all been affected by cancer in some way.  For those of you who don't know, my family has recently experienced the effects of cancer firsthand - a family member, as well as a few friends of the family, were and are sick with cancer this year.  It's been a very emotional and trying couple of months for our family, but with love and commitment we're getting through it.  And for many of you who have asked, though this has been quite a strain on my immediate and extended family, it has not affected my parent's relationship.  They're still strong and very much in love.  =)

Anyway...

Anyway, I'm on Ohio State Hillel's Relay For Life team, raising money for the cause.  I hope to make AT LEAST 100 dollars, though I think I'll be able to raise more than that.

Wanna help?  Visit my personal Relay For Life page and click "donate."  It's pretty easy from there.  OR, you can visit my Facebook profile.  If you scroll down you'll see a banner in the left-hand column that says Relay For Life.  There's a "donate" button there as well.

Fighting For Women's Rights to Be Just as Safe and Empowered as Men Already Are.

...and maybe a little more than that.  May 13 is Take Back The Night, my feminist group (Womyn and Allies Rising in Resistance)'s big event of the school year.  TBTN begins in the afternoon with speakers, live music, different awareness groups and short seminars, and ends in the evening with a walk down High Street to show that women shouldn't have to fear men and assault when they are outside at night.  The theme of this year's Take Back The Night is "Illuminating Truths."

For those of you who don't know...

For those of you who don't know, rape is a problem on all college campuses, especially the large, heavily populated campuses that party a lot and have a large Greek Life population.  Sound familiar?  That's right, Ohio State fits that description perfectly.  This year alone there have been two reported rapes and a handful of reported sexual assaults on Ohio State's campus.  Many women don't come forward, and there are countless rapes and assaults that go unreported every year.  The Ohio State University isn't required to do anything about it, because The Ohio State University does not have an official sexual assault policy - a contract in the student handbook that students sign and that will hold them accountable for their actions.  There's a "resource guide," which is not nearly detailed enough, and is just a "guide." Womyn and Allies Rising in Resistance (WARR) is fighting and appealing to the student government and the exec board to get this changed.  People need to be held accountable for their actions.

Anyway...

 Anyway, if you're in town May 13, 2010, you should most definitely stop by the Wexner Center for the Arts plaza to hear some speakers and be a feminist for the day - you might like it.  Feminism's a spectrum in people's minds, but it really just comes down to equality.  Human rights.

I hope you've enjoyed my looooooong post - now go out and do something for someone else!

-Maddie.

Ugh...

This was brought to my attention by a friend in my feminist club.  On radio station 106.7, "Rover's Morning Glory,"  The DJs discuss whether or not a victim can be held accountable for being raped because of the way she is dressed.  This is such crap! Of course it's not the woman's fault for men's inability to act like a decent human being.  The female DJ is trying to do the right thing, but her co-hosts are idiots.

...ugh.

Triggering content.  Triggering content.  These guys pissed ME off with all of their victim-blaming crap.  If you think it might trigger a traumatic memory, don't listen.  Or don't listen until you're ready; and have someone at hand to talk with.  To listen to the links, right-click them and click "open link in new tab." Or you might be able to just click it.

Part1

Part2

And for those of you who didn't know, a woman was assaulted and raped around 8:30 Monday night on Ohio State's campus near the building where I have Philosophy class.  Here are some slanted articles about that as well.  "Alleged"? That's rude.:

http://www.10tv.com/live/content/local/stories/2010/03/02/story-ohio-state-campus-crime.html

I took the Lantern article off of my blog, and here's why:  The Lantern? No tact. They included the name of the woman's Residential Advisor, the dorm she lives in, and a map from her dorm to the place on campus where the incident occured.  No tact.

"ISRAEL APARTHEID WEEK."

Soapbox time.  This week is "Israel Apartheid Week" around the world, where misinformed individuals with good hearts and minimal facts compare the situation in Gaza to Apartheid South Africa.  This is an insult to the horrors that Black South Africans experienced during apartheid.  Believe me - I've been there.  I've visited the jails, I've gone to the Johannesburg Constitutional Court, I visited the University of Witwatersrand this time last year, where the walls and outdoor tables were covered with accusations that Israel is an apartheid state.  It's just not true. I know this because I've also been to Israel.  Here is some information on what's REALLY going on.

For more talking points visit Stand With Us and scroll a fourth of the way down.  On the left, click "Apartheid Week Response Materials."

 

MYTH:    "Israel is an apartheid state."    FACT:       Even before the State of Israel was established, Jewish leaders consciously sought to avoid the creation of a segregated society.  Since the United Nations Conference on Racism in August of 2001, anti-Semites and racists have tried to delegitimize Israel by calling it an apartheid state. Their hope is that this false equation will tar Israel and encourage measures similar to those used against South Africa, such as sanctions anddivestment, to be applied to Israel. The comparison is malicious and insults the South Africans who suffered under apartheid. The term "apartheid" refers to the official government policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in South Africa. The whites sought to dominate the nonwhite population, especially the indigenous black population, and discriminated against people of color in the political, legal, and economic sectors. Whites and nonwhites lived in separate regions of the country. Nonwhites were prohibited from running businesses or professional practices in the white areas without permits. Nonwhites had separate amenities (i.e. beaches, buses, schools, benches, drinking fountains, restrooms). Nonwhites received inferior education, medical care, and other public services. Though they were the overwhelming majority of the population, nonwhites could not vote or become citizens. By contrast, Israel's Declaration of Independence called upon the Arab inhabitants of Israel to "participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions." The 156,000 Arabs within Israel's borders in 1948 were given citizenship in the new State of Israel. Today, this Arabminority comprises 20% of the population. It is illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of race and Arab citizens of Israel are represented in all walks of Israeli life. Arabs have served in senior diplomatic and government positions and an Arab currently serves on theSupreme Court. Israeli Arabs have formed their own political parties and won representation in the Knesset. Arabs are also members of the major Israeli parties. Twelve non-Jews (10 Arabs, two Druze) are members of the Seventeenth Knesset. Laws dictated where nonwhites could live, work, and travel inSouth Africa, and the government imprisoned and sometimes killed those who protested against its policies. By contrast,Israel allows freedom of movement, assembly and speech. Some of the government's harshest critics are Israeli Arabs in the Knesset. Arab students and professors study, research, and teach at Israeli universities. At Haifa University, the target of British advocates of an academic boycott against Israel, 20 percent of the students are Arabs. Israeli society is not perfect - discrimination and unfairness exist there as it does in every other country. These differences, however, are nothing like the horrors of the apartheid system. Moreover, when inequalities are identified, minorities in Israel have the right to seek redress through the government and the courts, and progress toward equality has been made over the years. The situation of Palestinians in the territories is different. While many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Stripdispute Israel's right to exist, nonwhites did not seek the destruction of South Africa, only of the apartheid regime. Unlike South Africa, where restrictions were racially motivated, Israel is forced by incessant Palestinian terrorismto take actions, such as building checkpoints and the security fence, to protect its citizens. Israel has consistently demonstrated a willingness, however, to ease restrictions when violence subsides. Beyond limits placed on their ability to attack Israel, roughly 98% of the Palestinians in the territories are governed by the rules of the Palestinian Authority, which do not permit freedom of speech, religion, assembly or other rights taken for granted by Westerners - and guaranteed in Israel. If Israel were to give Palestinians full citizenship, it would mean the territories had been annexed and the possibility of the creation of a Palestinian state foreclosed. No Israeli government has been prepared to take that step. Instead,Israel seeks a two-state solution predicated on a Palestinian willingness to live in peace. The clearest refutation of the calumny against Israel comes from the Palestinians themselves. When asked what governments they admire most, more than 80 percent of Palestinians consistently choose Israel because they can see up close the thriving democracy in Israel, and the rights theArab citizens enjoy there. "When there is peace, we will forgive you for killing our sons.  But we will never forgive you for making our sons kill yours." - Golda Meir to Anwar Saddat

More about WARR.

Last night, October 19, I was walking back to my dorm.  I was wearing a sweatshirt, striped knee-length skirt, tall "Ugg" brand boots, and footless tights.  Quite warm and cozy.

As I walked down Lane Avenue, a car whizzed by me and the jerk in the passenger seat flipped me the bird and yelled, "nice leggings!"

First of all, what the hell kind of insult is that?

Second of all, that absolutely qualifies as harassment.  Even though it wasn't a complimentary catcall, it was a catcall all the same.  In yelling at me from a moving car, that jerk attempted to dehumanize me, with God-knows-what result in mind.  Did he think, as Jerry Seinfeld jokes, that I would "chase after him, grab onto the bumper," and be happy that he noticed me?

I will not be dehumanized.  As mentioned in my friend's speech at "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes," catcalling is verbal abuse, which is just a step away from physical abuse, which is a step away from rape.  I didn't ask to get catcalled.  I'm livid about it, actually.  But you know what? He's really not worth my time. I'm not going to let some jerk whom I'm better than live rent-free in my head - insulting him would be a discourtesy.  He doesn't deserve any of my attention.

Anyway, back to WARR...

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes - Got Consent?

Thursday, October 15, 2009

I haven't blogged in a while, and I'll still be posting Rwanda posts eventually as well as random updates on college life.   The short version is that I am loving it here at Ohio State. There are endless opportunities to get involved and make a difference, and events that cater to my interests and subjects I'm passionate about, like the event I went to tonight.

Tonight I went to an event called Walk a Mile in Her Shoes sponsored by the Ohio State Interfraternity Council and the Ohio Union Activities board.  As stated on the Facebook event page, "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes is the International Men's March to raise awareness for Rape, Sexual Assault, and Gender Violence."  The hundreds (I think there were hundreds) of men who showed up literally walked a full mile in women's high-heeled shoes (very large high-heeled shoes) to show support for the cause.  I went to support the guys and to buy a t-shirt, the proceeds of which went to SARNCO, the Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio.

I met up with some friends from WARR (Women and Allies Rising in Resistance), the feminist club which I'm a part of on campus.  One of the girls, co-leader of WARR, was at the event to speak about sexual assault that she had experienced.

It was hilarious watching the guys wobble on four- and five-inch heels, rolling up their jeans so they wouldn't step on them, and trying to keep from tripping.  Some of the boys really got the hang of it - their runway walks were steadier than I could have done in high heels, which I tend to avoid.

Two of the guys did fantastically well - one guy brought his own high heels, eight-inch black and red platforms that could only have been worn by a talented stripper or a transvestite.  Very impressiv.  There was a student dressed in a red bodysuit (it even had a hood and covered his fingers) of Under Armor with sexy black heels, a pink cape with a breast cancer ribbon silkscreened to it, and legs that were as long as I am tall.  He "broke it down" and did the dance from the music video of Beyonce's "Single Ladies."

After the men had walked (or in some cases, ran) the mile in their pumps, they sat in the Wexner Center plaza to listen to my friend's story.

She talked about being sexually assaulted at Ohio University.  Just a week after her 19th birthday a year and a half ago, she met a man at a party and was vaginally raped and forced to give him oral sex at his home later that night.  She talked about the difficulties of being a "victim" and the emotional and physical damage it caused her.  She was still bleeding the next day, so she went to the emergency room and was forced to look at the extent of the damage he had done to her body.  She didn't want to tell her mother, because then she would have to face the fact that this horrible, unspeakable thing had happened to her.  She cried for over two weeks straight after the incident -

"And I don't cry," she said, "not during sappy commercials, not during Titanic, not during The Notebook.  I'm a tough girl."

She was terrified of men - all men - and rarely left her dorm for social activities, afraid that she might run into her rapist, or that he would try to find her and hurt her again.  She finally went forward to prosecute, hoping her troubles would end with her rapist being put in jail, but instead her case was dropped. 

She told her mother that she "just wanted to feel normal again." She wanted to stop feeling afraid and regain control of her life.

The audience of this story, about 100 male college students and 50 female students, listened quietly as she spoke.

"We filed a civil lawsuit this March and we're still in that process, but I'm finally starting to move on and as you all can see, I'm able to talk about it.  I'm not a 'victim' anymore, I'm now a 'survivor'."

She went on to talk about how rape affects everyone, and not just the act itself - when men objectify women by catcalling them on the street they're saying that women are just objects to be used and appreciated by men.

"A woman does not ever 'have it coming' by the way she dresses, how she looks, how much she drinks at a party.  Women have the right to look the way they want to, dress the way they want to, and drink as much as they want to.  A woman shouldn't expect or fear getting raped because of the choices she makes.

      Don't make rape ok, don't devalue it by using the word 'rape' in a joking matter, or joking about having sex with the drunkest girl at the party.  We all have to commit to do our part.  Real men don't rape women, and consent is not coersion, or drunkenness, or a 'no.' Consent is a certain and enthusiastic 'yes'."

When she finished, everyone stood and applauded her courage and we hugged her and told her what a wonderful job she'd done.

While I'm sure it was fun teetering around in an accessory most of them would probably never wear again (until next year's event, that is), the men knew that they were there to be allies in the fight against sexual assault, rape, and gender violence, and it was so refreshing to see male support in the constant battle for women's equality and respect.