Fiction has always been a powerful tool used to bring awareness to issues that plague society. As a vehicle, it brings the audience into a very intimate experience with the subject matter, to a point that that experience becomes very real to the audience member. But how "real" is the fictional experience? In an age of TV and Film, those fictional representations become the basis for educating a mass audience about a given topicmatter. While shedding light on an issue is a great service to the cause, the media & entertainment industry walks a fine line between sensationalizing and being sensitive to maintaining the integrity of the issue.

The Metropolitan New York Chapter of the US National Committee for UNIFEM (now part of UN Women) has selected a dynamic group of experts, ranging from screenwriters and producers to lawyers and academics to speak about this very important topic as it related to violence against women. The panel seeks to discern fact from fiction in an effort to provide a deeper understanding of gender violence on a domestic and international level. Join us for what promises to be a powerful evening.

The Panel:

John Colombo, former Ventura County District Attorney with history in criminal prosecution in cases dealing with domestic violence and sexual assault

Licha Nyiendo U.S. Attorney's Office Deputy Chief of the Civil Rights Unit

Roselyn Myers, criminal justice editor and Professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Fordham University School of Law

Randy Pearlstein, writer, Performer, and Professor of Film and Television writing at Rutgers University

Susan Shapiro Barash, writer of nonfiction women's issue books and teaches gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College

Moderated by:
Rita Henley Jensen, writer for Women's E-News