During the month of March, Cerritos College celebrated Women’s History Month, but one event was postponed until April. Mavis Leno was supposed to speak to the students of Cerritos College in March but she had to postpone the event due to a family emergency. On April 2, Mavis Leno came to speak to the students and faculty on a presentation “The American Feminist Spirit,” in the student center. The event was sponsored by the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and the Colloquium for Women’s Studies. Leno spoke to the students about the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan. The audience was filled with students, faculty and board of trustee members. Some of the students were their for extra credit assignments. The audience was shown a video on Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan. The video featured information about what goes on in Afghanistan and how the United States needs to get involved with helping the women of Afghanistan to be heard. The video explained about how the women in Afghanistan are being treated by the Taliban regime in everyday situations. Women can be beaten or even stoned to death for what seems to be no big deal such as having to breastfeed your baby in public. The Taliban encourage men and women to come to the public stoning and executions. The reason why the Taliban do what they do is they say they are following Islamic Rule, but its not that at all. They just use it to do as they please. The video also talked about how 70 percent of the children suffer from severe anxiety and at least 90 percent have witnessed violent attacks.Leno talked about what the Feminist Majority Foundation is trying to do in their fight to stop gender apartheid. The foundation has been involved in stopping Unical from putting a pipeline in Afghanistan so the Taliban will not become more powerful and create problems with the flow of oil. They also stage protest to help make people more aware of the situation in the country. Mavis said that the Taliban had cut off the country to any media outlets so the people would feel that no one was trying to stop the Taliban. The people were basically put under house arrest. The women in the country were not informed about the freedoms that they do have since Afghanistan was under democracy.Mavis Leno joined the organization in 1997 when the Taliban was only a few months old. From then on she has made it her life to help the women of Afghanistan be free of gender apartheid. “No newspapers or magazines would cover the story,” Leno commented. The Taliban figured that the American people would not be interested in what is going on in foreign countries let alone the women of Afghanistan. Mavis wants make sure to let the people of America know what is going on. “We are going to make a huge stinking deal about this so no one will be oblivious to what is going on,” Leno said.Leno has been involved with making the public aware of this delicate issue. One of Leno’s main goals is to make a difference in securing women’s rights within and outside of the United States. She encourages everyone to follow their heart and get involved in something they really care about. The FMLA and the Colloquium of Women’s Studies gave her a plaque in recognition of all the hard work she is doing to keep the “Spirit of Feminism Alive.”