SUNY Old Westbury’s Student Government Association and the Women’s Center held a virtual screening and discussion session about the documentary, Not Done: Women Remaking America on November 10th.

The new film directed by first-timer Sara Wolitzky was shown on October 27th on PBS and it was released by Verizon’s Future Fund. This prominent company has been devoted to encouraging new and developing female power in the entertainment and tech industry. The film examines the uproar of feminism from the past four years. Starting with the presidential election in 2016, to women marches for equality, the MeToo movement, the seriousness of Black Lives Matter, and the beginning of Time’s Up.

After watching the documentary together, a discussion was held and led by Dr. Jacqueline Emery, Director of the Gender Studies Program; including the assistance of Dr. Sarah Smith and Dr. Chris Hartmann from the Public Health Department.

Similar to the experience of everyone who watched the film, Dr. Emery described her first-time experience from weeks ago as being “sad, anxious and very cheerful. And watching it again today, and reading the comments, I feel so hopeful.”

SGA’s President Kalief Metellus believes “it is very sad that women in general have to go through those things to make the changes they want to see in today’s time… Overall I’m just glad women are stepping up to the plate, you need to speak up for yourselves because if you don’t, nobody else will.”

Another student spokesperson was Anne Laforest, who stated the film is “such a powerful documentary. I feel that as women, we carry around a lot of layers. A lot of different layers. And those layers were unraveled during this documentary… I think that we are breaking barriers. We are moving forward. We are standing up for ourselves, and putting our foot down.”

Several students participated in commenting about Not Done, and were genuinely thankful for this experience and opportunity to voice their thoughts.