How to Fight Like A Mother-Shannon Watts, Moms Demand Action

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There have been over 200 mass shootings in this country since 2009. Shannon Watts, the author of a new book: Fight Like a Mother, is the founder of Moms Demand Action, a group that is using research, data, and a little bit of “nap-tivism” to throw their weight and money behind political candidates who are willing to put better gun control laws into action. The kicker? They’re winning. In the last election, they outspent even the NRA. Their goal: make our country safer.

Join us this week for a look at why our kids are subjected to violent and traumatizing active shooter drills, and what it takes to pass sensible gun legislation. We talk about the root cause of gun violence, who takes the brunt of the violence when background checks get lax, “losing forward” and the very real and positive change that is starting to take place as we come up to the 2020 elections.

Photo courtesy of Shannon Watts

Eve Ensler and the Radically Transformative Power of Apology

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Stress warning: This episode contains conversation about sexual assault and violence.

This week on Inflection Point, I talk with Eve Ensler, award-winning playwright of The Vagina Monologues, about her new book “The Apology”, in which she writes in the voice of her father to apologize to herself--from him-- for the years of sexual and physical abuse he perpetrated upon her.

You will be blown away by Eve’s resilience, by her self-knowledge, by her strength of character, and by her deep well of compassion and empathy. Her ideas for political and social reform, as well as her profound insights into the human soul, make her a true radical, and radically empathetic.

This week, we discuss the anatomy of a true apology, and the transformative power that apologies hold for the apologists themselves and their recipients. We discuss why punishment never leads to rehabilitation. We discuss the roots of abuse, and how we can start shifting the paradigm.

A must-listen for anyone frustrated at the lack-luster apologies precipitated by the #MeToo movement. A must-listen for anyone infuriated by the Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford cases. A must-listen for anyone who needs to apologize for something. A must-listen for anyone who has ever needed an apology, but didn’t get one.

I also spoke with Eve in October of 2016, about a year before the #MeToo movement took off. Her words were prescient and I encourage you to listen to that conversation too.

If this conversation is important to you, please support our independent production with a tax deductible donation. Inflection Point is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.

Photo courtesy of The Commonwealth Club of California. Photo by James Meinerth

Photo courtesy of Eve Ensler

“Don’t cry, strategize” How Khalida Brohi is fighting honor killing in rural Pakistan

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Khalida Brohi was a teenager when she learned that her uncle had murdered her cousin to restore his family’s honor. Her cousin’s crime: falling in love with a boy who she wasn’t betrothed to marry.

Since 2008, Khalida has been working to end honor killings and domestic violence in the indigenous communities of Pakistan. Her work has led to raising awareness abroad and at home and pressuring the Pakistani government to close loopholes in the law that allowed men to get away with the murder and violence against women in the name of honor.

She also works in the villages to change the mindsets of men like her uncle and women like her grandmother. People whose dignity she must respect while helping them loosen the grip honor has had upon their sense of worth.
This conversation with Khalida Brohi, author of I Should Have Honor was recorded in a special episode at The Women’s Building in San Francisco as part of Inflection Point’s collaboration with Women Lit/Bay Area Book Festival.