Meet the teenagers who started a feminist club at their all-boys prep school
Matt Chen, left, and Matias Benitez started a HeForShe club at Regis High School in Manhattan about a year ago. By Samantha Schmidt Samantha Schmidt Reporter covering gender and family issues Email Bio Follow March 6 at 8:00 AM It started out as somewhat of a joke: What would happen if an all-boys prep school had a club for feminists?
Matias thought back to a speech he watched years earlier by actress Emma Watson, whose campaign, HeForShe, aimed to galvanize men and boys to be advocates for gender equality. The club suddenly didn’t seem like such a crazy idea. An hour later, he texted his friend Matt Chen, a fellow Regis sophomore.“That’s a great idea,” Matt responded.
Since launching the club, which they called HeForShe, one year ago, Matias and Matt have held weekly meetings with about a half-dozen other boys to discuss the biggest gender news of the day — everything from pregnancy discrimination to college sexual assault to the Boy Scouts’ decision to accept girls. They have hosted standing-room-only meetings during their lunch period, offering free pizza to draw crowds of upward of 40 boys.
When the boys heard that some girls had felt uncomfortable and had been touched inappropriately at some of the Regis High School dances in previous years, the HeForShe club joined forces with the nearby Catholic and all-girls Marymount School to host a conversation about how to create a healthier environment at the school’s dances.
The group’s conversations have overflowed into the hallways and created ripple effects throughout the school, said Christian Mariano, assistant principal for student life at Regis. The Catholic prep school enrolls 534 boys, grades nine through 12, all of whom receive full scholarships and many of whom commute from at least an hour away, according to the Regis website.
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