By Karen Neill
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On Jan. 23, the MHS National Honor Society (NHS) hosted a Rock for Feminism concert to bring awareness to an important issue while also supporting student bands. Student and guest speakers alike came together to educate and inspire the audience in support of feminism.
“We wanted to do something that we could talk about with the community or raise awareness within the community on an issue that’s not, well maybe not well-known, but not talked about as much,” said NHS Event Coordinator Senior Tyler Oshiro. “A lot of people have the misconception that this was an issue of the past, but actually people don’t realize that just because we had these reforms where there are more equal rights, it’s still surprising how unequal things are.”
One of the primary goals of the night was to make students and anyone else attending more mindful of modern day sexism. Tricia Nakamatsu, a guest speaker at the event and president of Hawaii Women Lawyers, explained, “(What I want people to take away from this) is just to realize that discrimination still does exist. It’s a lot more subtle than it used to be and takes different forms than it used to during our parents’ and grandparents’ time, but it still does exist and there are still reasons to be aware of it and learn more about it and just to persevere.”
Along with guest speeches, student speeches and slam poetry, student bands “2K Away” and “Strangers with Kandy” played throughout the night. “I think it’s a really good way to bring awareness to the subject because everyone wants to go to concerts right, who doesn’t love concerts? So I think putting bands out there is a good way to bring people in,” said attendee Senior Genevieve Castaneda.
Overall, the event went even better than initially expected. Oshiro explained, “I was worried people wouldn’t enjoy the event, but actually it seemed like they enjoyed the speakers just as much as the music. We’re talking about high school kids (who wouldn’t) really consider listening to speakers interesting, but surprisingly they (did).” Castaneda added, “(Our generation is) just trying to change the world and I think that’s a great thing. Because if we had this in the 1950s, (the thing is) we wouldn’t. This is so cool.”
After seeing everything that was planned and having it come together so well, the students of NHS felt that they got the message across and found the night to be inspirational.
