There is this notion that Rosemary brought up of creating alternative content, because it's overwhelming to think of every sexist ad, every sexist music video, every convicted felon on a professional sports team in the world, and how to approach those is so complex and so vast that it's almost overwhelming.
One thing that we focus on at White Ribbon is this notion of creating the content that shows the positive way. But the other thing, and I think probably the most concrete solution to dealing with that overwhelming challenge, is to teach young people how to be critical of those things.
When we work with young men and boys and we point out some of these harmful and toxic ideas of masculinity, for example, we do an exercise with them. We talk about sexual violence myths, the things we hear all the time: what was she wearing, what was she drinking, why was she there alone, all of these types of things. Obviously we deconstruct a little bit about what that is saying about women and girls, which is awful, but what is this also saying about men and boys: that we are a mini-skirt away from being a rapist, or that we're unable to control ourselves and we're just barely able to contain ourselves from sexually assaulting somebody if we have a beer? That's what those myths are reinforcing on the critical side for men and boys.
If you teach young boys to see some of that, all of a sudden they can see it in lots of different places and they become the change agents who you need to recruit to get that kind of transformative change happening across society.
It's extremely taxing and incredibly frustrating as an organization to spend your entire life every time a petition comes for a sexist ad, every time a music video raises some controversy.... Obviously you have to stand up and model that kind of intervention and behaviour as well. But how do you change the music industry? How do you change a pro sports league? How do you do those things? That's the bigger question.