The ISU Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance is a feminist group on campus that uses original techniques to spread its message of global equality.

“I represent a woman stoned to death in Afghanistan” is a message printed on the organization’s T-shirts to help make people aware of the abuse and oppression hurting women around the world.

Abby Hansen, FMLA president, said the organization tries to promote equality for both genders.

“We’ve been following up on the Taliban for years now and are now reviving our efforts,” said Hansen, senior in women’s studies. “We don’t want human rights to be infringed upon.”

The ISU FMLA chapter, which stemmed from the Feminist Majority Foundation in 1999, has weekly meetings at the Sloss House to discuss issues of oppression and plan events to increase awareness of the need for equality.

Hansen said the organization’s active nature has drastically increased the number of members since 1999.

“We have a really strong e-mail list and keep up to date with about 200 people who are interested in what we do,” she said. “We usually range from about 25 to 30 active members at the meetings.”

FMLA members talk about worldwide oppression and oppression that happens every day at Iowa State, Hansen said.

“We talk a lot about internalized sexism – how we devalue ourselves and other women in our own life,” she said. “We sometimes take sexism in and make it a part of our lives instead of combating it.”

Women are not the only people who join FMLA to increase awareness about oppression. The organization is open to anyone who chooses to take up these issues. In fact, some of the cabinet positions are filled by men.

“We usually have about five to 10 guys show up to each meeting,” said Ross Helgevold, FMLA finance chairman. “The group is very supportive of having guys in it.”

Helgevold, junior in English, said FMLA members are supportive of men joining in their efforts, and the ISU student body is supportive, as well.

“Most people are more interested in why I am in [FMLA] than anything else,” he said. “Attending something about what the Taliban does to women last year made me realize that there is injustice happening all over, and so I started attending [FMLA] meetings.”

Like Helgevold, many FMLA members have met people and had experiences that have led them to strive to change the inequalities surrounding them.

“The more classes I take and experience I have, the angrier it makes me that inequalities are in this world,” said Veronica Franck, junior in psychology.

Although FMLA looks deeply at injustices that happen to women, Franck said the organization’s cause expands to anyone who suffers from oppression.

“We’re not only about equality between men and women, but equality between races, classes and sexual orientation,” she said. “It’s all tied together in the end.”