A man speaks on women's issues at Utah State
By Ford Rasmussen
A man addressed gender equality to a packed auditorium at 7 p.m. today in the Edith Bowen Laboratory School auditorium.
Nicholas Kristof is a New York Times columnist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. According to his biography, Kristof has traveled to more than 140 countries and lived on four continents. Today he came to Utah State to discuss gender equality.
Kristof said to his audience that his interest in women's issues began when he was in China. In reference to gender equality, he said it "will be the central moral challenge" going into the future.
Kristof's presentation was sponsored by the Center for Women and Gender at the Cain College of the Arts. Jerra Fowers is one of the two student office aides at the center. She said that according to her knowledge this is the first time a male speaker has addressed women's rights at Utah State.
"A lot of our audience has been women," Fowers said. She said that the word feminism has "kind of a bad stigma," but the center is about more than that.
"We say women's rights, but we're really gender equality," Fowers said.
Justin Wheeler is the other office aid at the center. Wheeler said that he used to be the only guy in the school's Perspectives club, a student run organization that is part of the Center for Women and Gender. The Perspectives club seeks to foment discussion on many human rights issues including gender equality, political participation, property rights and more.
Wheeler says he's seen more men get involved with the club recently. On Jan. 24 the club presented a documentary film called "The Empathy Gap." Wheeler estimated there were about 50 people who showed up to see the film. Half of them, he said, were guys.
"There are a lot of problems that are hard to talk about," Kristoff said to his audience today. "And if we don't talk about it, we can't make progress."
