Genesis The Podcast

The Quiet Undoing: A Warning for Women’s Rights

• Genesis Women's Shelter & Support • Season 5 • Episode 1

Share episode

When asked whether they'd rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man, most women choose the bear - a startling reflection of how women perceive safety in modern America. Genesis CEO Jan Langbein joins host Maria MacMullin to explore this phenomenon and discuss the evolution of women's rights and domestic violence services as Genesis approaches its 40th anniversary.

We open season 5 of Genesis The Podcast reflecting upon how far women's rights have come—and how fragile those gains remain. Within the lifetime of Jan Langbein, married women couldn't open bank accounts, take out loans, or travel internationally without a husband's permission. Marital rape wasn't recognized as a crime. Women earned just 59 cents on the dollar compared to men. The right to vote came to all women in America only relatively recently, with barriers like poll taxes deliberately designed to discourage women of color from voting well into the 1960s.

Today, new threats loom on the horizon: proposals for one vote per household (cast by the man), efforts to repeal the 19th Amendment, and laws restricting women's healthcare access and freedom of movement. Drawing parallels to Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," Langbein warns that rights disappear gradually—like being in a "slowly heating bathtub"—if we fail to recognize warning signs and stand together.

Despite decades of progress, Genesis currently must turn away 50 people seeking shelter daily due to lack of capacity. Langbein envisions expanding shelter services and creating a societal paradigm shift from asking "why doesn't she leave?" to "why does he abuse?" She reminds us that communities can never be safe if people aren't safe in their own homes.

Join us for this thought-provoking exploration of women's equity, domestic violence, and the power of unity. Subscribe to Genesis the Podcast and follow us on social media to continue these crucial conversations about creating a safer world for everyone.

Speaker 1:

The past year has had its share of changes and eye-opening moments, not the least of which is when, asked, would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man, most women responded a bear. How we got to this point was a long road, but not too difficult to understand, as men commit more violent acts against women than bears, who, in comparison, commit only about 20 attacks in a year. There's more to that story and we are here to explore it as we launch season five. I'm Maria MacMullin and this is Genesis the Podcast. Welcome to season five of Genesis the Podcast. To kick it off, my guest is Genesis CEO Jan Langbein.

Speaker 1:

Jan has been the CEO of Genesis Women's Shelter and Support for 34 years. Throughout her career, jan has been an activist in efforts to end violence against women. As the CEO, she oversees internal and external operations, as well as funding and community education. Under her leadership, genesis has grown from a seven room emergency shelter to a full service response for survivors of domestic violence and maintain its unique status as one of the few victim services programs that accomplishes sustainability without government funding. She is also a recognized national expert on domestic violence and conducts training and workshops across the United States. In partnership with the Dallas Police Department and the FBI, she co-founded the annual International Conference on Crimes Against Women. 2025 marks Genesis's 40th year of providing safety, shelter and support for survivors of domestic violence. Jan, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited and I'm excited. We're kicking off this fifth year of our Genesis, the podcast.

Speaker 1:

It's super exciting and may I also add happy 40th anniversary. We look pretty good for 40, don't?

Speaker 2:

we Right, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Because 2025 marks four decades of domestic violence services for women and children in North Texas, as what started out as a seven-bedroom emergency shelter now serves 3,000 people annually across multiple locations with both residential and non-residential support. So we've come a long way and you have been a part of that progress for the better part of 34 years. So to begin, let's talk about how domestic violence services have evolved and where they're headed.

Speaker 2:

If I think back, I wasn't there on day one, but I was pretty close because three years before joining the staff I was the Tuesday morning volunteer. I'm not from abuse, I didn't know anything about it, I had never heard of Genesis, but it's a God thing I guess that I was there and I'm there now, but how that has changed. I know that my board of directors, when I first started at Genesis, they thought if you just could give them a couple of days in a safe spot, if you could give them a week where he would cool down and then she could go back home. But they learned very quickly that that is absolutely not the case.

Speaker 2:

As we say at Genesis, abuse doesn't stop until abusers stop abusing. And for her to leave and when he doesn't know where she is, it's almost like it makes it worse, right? And so we extended the time, we extended the services and with every roadblock that she would face, genesis would step up to try to find a way to help her over that bridge, right? So whether that's child care, whether that is access to civil legal representation, whether that is school on site, so her children would be safe. What we've also recognized over the years is getting a job, getting a car, having transportation, having an apartment, having a protective order isn't enough. The impact of trauma on the brain is amazing. Genesis is one of the leaders of stepping up and saying the impact the physiological impact, but also the emotional impact of trauma.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely so. Let's get a little more information on all of that, about how Genesis began, because I want to understand the underpinnings of this journey. What was it like for women when Genesis first opened its doors, and where are we headed?

Speaker 2:

Yes. Well, that's a big question when I start thinking about what it was like, not just for Genesis 40 years ago and how far we've come, but what it was like for women 40 years ago. I have been married, 50 plus years actually, and when I married I was not allowed to open a checking account on my own. I could not take out a loan on my own. I could not travel internationally on my own. That just absolutely I can't even believe I'm sitting here saying that that was even a thing in my lifetime, much less my married lifetime. When I married, there was no such thing as marital rape, when we know, of course, that marital rape is just about stranger on stranger rape. Only he can jump out of the bushes anytime he wants if he is your spouse or partner. I had to have my husband's permission to go on birth control.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

That is news to me.

Speaker 1:

I did not know that Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I earned 59 cents on the dollar. We both graduated from college same time. We both came back to Dallas and he went to work at one bank, I went to work at another bank and I earned 59 cents on the dollar Incredible. So yeah, we've come a long way, but when I tell these things, particularly to young women, they had no idea. They had no idea how recently we've had the vote. They have no idea how not only have we had to fight for this, that how quickly it can be given away again, and so I think that's something you and I want to talk about today for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, and you bring up so many valid points, because I was born in the seventies and so many of the changes that came for women including being able to open your own bank account, being able to apply for a loan or a mortgage happened at the time that I was in my childhood, and so I really wasn't affected by the lack of privileges that women had.

Speaker 2:

But think about this when you were born, then all women only had the right to vote since 1965. 1965, I was in high school and didn't realize that I mean, I should have been marching and burning my bra way back then. You know, Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And I'm surprised that you weren't actually I was not.

Speaker 2:

I was taking home ec and learning how to sew. I mean, what was the matter that we were so ingrained in this? But August 26th, just short weeks ago, august 26th marked the 105th anniversary of women's right to vote. Now, was that all women? Absolutely not. It was white women.

Speaker 2:

And you start thinking about where that right to vote started, which was in 1860 something or other, where what today I call my kitchen table ambassadors, they had a tea party, and that's where that conversation started, in Seneca Falls, new York. And so it still took until 1920, 1863 to 1920, before that passed before Congress, and then another 40 years before women of color could vote, or Native women could vote, or women with disabilities could vote, and still they had to pay poll tax. Take a literacy test in Dallas County and I don't know why this has just come to my attention there was a woman, an amazing woman, in our city and in our county. Her name was Juanita Craft. She was the first African-American woman to vote in Dallas County and she actually had to pay I think it was $1.25 poll tax. I don't think I had to pay it.

Speaker 1:

Do you know what that was based on? What was it based on?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't want you to vote. You shouldn't be voting, so I'm going to put these things on. I'm going to put these things on you, like you have to be able to read To discourage you, to discourage you from voting. The story that I heard about Juanita Craft was that she had to save up all year long to get that extra money, and I wonder what that would be the equivalent of today. What do you think in 1965? And stood in line for hours to get to do it. They slowed it down Anything they could to keep women from voting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't know what that would be in today's dollars, but you raise a really interesting point at this moment in time, because we are hearing conversations about changing the voting process.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. This is why I bring those particular thoughts up is because there is a lot of talk about removing women's rights to vote. In this administration there are several, many, many people. The policy that was really founded on Project 25, I know this president said I don't know anything about it while he was running. He knew everything about it. Included in there is one vote per household and the man cast that vote. So if grandma lives in the house, if you're taking care of nieces and nephews in the house, if you have a married daughter in the house, the man has the vote.

Speaker 2:

There is a group in Idaho there. I don't even want to tell you his name, you can look it up, but it is Christ Church. It started in Moscow, idaho, and now there's several across the country, very, very conservative Idaho, and now there's several across the country, very, very conservative. But they are proposing the repeal of the 19th Amendment. Now could that happen? I don't know. Do you read Margaret Atwood? I do. Okay, if you've watched Handmaid's Tale, which I binged again this summer because of the final episode coming up, you know how quickly our credit could be cut off, how quickly our jobs could be done away with based on whatever. So I want to be sure for my granddaughters that we protect this.

Speaker 2:

I remember a quote and I'm not going to get this exactly right, but by President Barack Obama, who said he will never forget that the reason he is here there is that somebody stood up when it was risky. Somebody stood up when it was scary, when it was dangerous, and when some people stood up, more people stood up and more people stood up. And that's a real positive spin on the message that came from a prisoner. He said when they came for the socialists, I didn't say anything because I wasn't a socialist. And when they came for the gypsies, I'm not a gypsy. When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I'm not a Jew. And he said when they came for me, there was no one else to speak out loud. So I guess that's where I go. I want my daughters and my granddaughters never to miss an election. I want them to know how hard we're standing on the shoulders of people who were force-fed semolina in a mental institution, and I just don't think we can take that lightly.

Speaker 1:

I think it takes a lot of courage to say the things that you've said and do the work that you have done, and I know it's inspirational to me, to our listeners, about what it takes to be a fearless leader in the fight for women's rights, especially when women are being abused. And because you've done just that over the years and you continue to do it as well. And just back, one more comment on the right to vote it's probably not impossible that women could lose the right to vote. I mean, it is not impossible. It is not impossible. Will it happen? We don't know. But that's why we're having these conversations and bringing it to the attention of our audience that these are things that we need to stand up for. We all need to band together and be concerned about these things and be concerned about the future and what it looks like for our children, our grandchildren and all of our descendants.

Speaker 2:

But let me say this it is not always really overt. There is an act that they want to pass. It has already passed the House, it's called the SAVE Act, s-a-v-e, and they're proposing it as a right for non-citizens to be denied the right to vote. Right, but how it impacts women is the thing. You have to show ID, but you have to show your birth certificate and the same name on your driver's license or you'll have to have two forms of ID.

Speaker 2:

So and have the same exact name, Exact name. So on my birth certificate it is Janice K Edgar. On my ID right now it's Jan Edgar Langbein. So do I have to show that I did get married when I was 20? Do I have to have the paperwork? And even think about how hard it would be within the lesbian community, the LGBT community or maybe even Native American community, that there perhaps weren't records of this person's birth, right or rural or whatever, born at home or whatever.

Speaker 2:

And so sometimes I look at these things and it sounds like okay, well, that sounds like a good idea, until we look through the lens of how does it impact women, particularly women who are in a controlling environment? To begin with, right, there's another law that they're looking at to reactivate, I guess, and it's the Comstock Act. Way, way back it was to keep people from sending pornography through the mail, which sounds good to me. I mean, I'm like burn all pornography and anybody who profits from it, right, but this Comstock Act is saying that you cannot send drugs through the mail, you cannot send anything that has to do with abortion. That can be stirrups for a doctor's office in California for, well, woman's care, but this mefapristone, it would be illegal to deliver that Bottom line. It's a national abortion ban. So again, if you're looking at, just yeah, don't send porn through the mail. But if you again look through that lens of how does it impact women, that's what it's about. It's not about pornography.

Speaker 2:

Can we lose our right to vote? You bet We've lost our right to our choice. We've lost our right to health care. You and I were talking before we taped this about a House bill out of Montana, 609. It has been shot down, voted out, but it'll raise its ugly head again and it basically says you can't leave the state for an abortion. You can't leave the state if you're pregnant and you have an abortion. So how do you know? You brought up the fact that women who are leaving the state for an abortion, if it's outlawed in your state, they don't look nine months pregnant or five months pregnant. You can't tell. So how would they even implement?

Speaker 1:

that, how would it be enforced? I mean, it would be hard to yes pee in the cup right after you put your laptop in the bucket. Well, fortunately for the people of Montana, that bill was shot down earlier this year, but to your point it could be.

Speaker 2:

Do you think that's the last we'll hear of that? I don't. It's hard to say I don't, I don't. So it goes back to what are we going to do about it? Right, are we calling our elected officials? I'm telling you, I called it wasn't four weeks after January, swearing in, and my senator's office literally picked up his cell phone and said hi, jan, I thought I'd be hearing from you, and rightfully so. Did it make a difference?

Speaker 2:

I don't think so, because he continues to vote very conservatively here in Texas we're looking at gerrymandering, at a mid-decade redistricting and you cannot tell me that that doesn't have a bigger. Why five seats in Texas? Why not someplace else, right? Well, I know Representative Crockett is a big thorn in people's sides and good for her. We all ought to be thorns in people's sides wherever you are on which side of the aisle right.

Speaker 1:

Amen to that and because you had me thinking that very thing as you were going through all of this. We're facing a lot of challenges, yes, yes, they're making women jump through a lot of hoops, but I'm not put off by that. All this time, all these centuries, all these years, women have had to jump through hoops. Rise to occasions to demonstrate that we are better than that, we are stronger than that and we are worthy of equity. So let us not be put off by all of the challenges coming toward us, but rise above it. And you want proof, you want paperwork, you want $1.25 or whatever it is for the poll tax. I'm here, I'll pay it and I'll make sure you've got the $1.25 to pay it Absolutely, and that's the message.

Speaker 2:

You know you were asking where do we go, when are we going from here? And I think voting rights is one of the big ones that we're going to be facing. Immigration is another one that women who are being just picked up off the street without due process. You think about walking your kids to school and you're not walking back to pick them up in the afternoon. At Genesis, we actually in our legal clinic. There we have attorneys who are writing powers of attorney for women who are afraid they won't be there Again. You add all of these things that are going on, but take a look at okay now what's it like if there's domestic violence in the home? Yes, because one out of every three of the women that we've been talking about whether voting or immigration, or women's healthcare, one out of every three of them are experiencing violence in the home. Right, so there are a lot of layers. There are so many layers, maria. There are so many layers, and so where do we begin to attack that?

Speaker 2:

I heard Jordan Lawson, our chief residential officer, the other day say when women come in, we ask them what are your goals, what are your dreams? What do you want to be? Which is what it's about. It's not my program and we've learned over the years that we're there, obviously four decades for her. And she said we give the analogy of a pizza. You can't stuff a whole pizza in your mouth and so you divide it into slices, and one slice is child care. Before I can do anything, I have to have child care. One slice is housing or living, wage, job, and so which one are you going to take a bite of first? So back to your layer analogy. We could stack those up, and if you take on that one, I'm going to take on another one.

Speaker 2:

I was at the county commissioner's court the other day. They were so nice to give a proclamation to Genesis, but it was so interesting to hear the other proclamations. One is about firearms, keeping children safe in the home. It wasn't like get rid of them, they were like lock them up, just lock them up. And I knew from looking there were some sad grandmothers sitting there talking and some sad moms that were talking. And you know, I think back to when my girls would go off to a sleepover. I'd say I'd call the parents, which humiliated them, of course.

Speaker 1:

But I'd say I know where you're going with this. You know where I'm going with this.

Speaker 2:

I've had these conversations Is there alcohol in the house? And will there be a parent, an adult, in that house, a responsible parent? Never asked. Is there a loaded gun in the house and yet so many kiddos, anyway. So I have asked that question.

Speaker 1:

They're taking that load, you have, yeah in this day and age, so we're like a generation apart, but I have asked that question, especially when my children were younger and going to a house of a family I wasn't familiar with. Yes, and it could be a family I am familiar with. I have no idea who's a gun owner and who isn't.

Speaker 2:

There's no advertising of that. And how do they keep them? You know, like we're gun owners.

Speaker 1:

I have very strict rules about what places even I will go into if there are guns present and how I feel about how they should be stored.

Speaker 2:

How they're being stored ammunition somewhere else. But anyway, if this group, that group will take the layer of women who are dying by firearms 63% of women who are killed by an intimate partner the choice of weapon is a firearm. So we know that it ratchets up the danger if someone is living in an abusive home, 500 times more likely to be killed if there is just the presence of a gun.

Speaker 2:

So I'm going to let them worry about that layer right and I'm going to continue to call my senator's office and I want you to work on that women safe walking their kids to school. And if we all did that, instead of standing back and saying gosh, isn't it a shame? And just wringing our hands, we have to all bear some responsibility.

Speaker 1:

I absolutely agree with that. For the environment that we live in, but very often we know that abusers are men, and those who are, in this case, trying to take rights away from women are, in fact, men.

Speaker 2:

It's a gendered crime. There's no doubt about it. Sexual assault, stalking, domestic violence, those are gendered crimes.

Speaker 1:

So as we consider all of this progress that we've made that you talked about, and also the current atmosphere where we find ourselves in 2025, I want to revisit a question that first surfaced in 2024 and was viral on social media, and we mentioned this in the beginning of the show. That question would be would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man? So most listeners are likely familiar with this debate and the answer most often responded was a bear, a bear. But we bring this up again because it begs the questions. First of all, why, why would you choose a bear over another human, a man? And also, how did we get to this point where women would prefer risking it all with a wild animal? Let's review what is behind this decision.

Speaker 2:

Well, for sure, if you think about all the people listening to this podcast. For sure, if you think about all the people listening to this podcast, and particularly the women, most all of us have experienced some type of abuse against me, right? Whereas I've never been afraid of a bear, I've been in the woods, I've hiked, I've stayed in the mountains in a cabin. I've seen bears at a distance and none have ever hurt me in any way. You talked about only 20 bear attacks a year, compared to the millions of women who are sexually assaulted, who are stalked, who are afraid, women who have experienced gaslighting, women who are currently in a relationship with a toxic, controlling narcissist. Narcissism is a weapon almost as deadly as a firearm, I promise you after years and years of working with women at Genesis. But you put that whole package together and all of us know someone like that or have had little peaks of things like that in our relationships, right?

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, If a woman is sexually assaulted, they ask her how much she had to drink, Correct? If a woman gets attacked by a wild animal, no one's going to ask her were you drinking that night? What did you have on?

Speaker 2:

Why were you there in the first place? How much did you have to drink? No, exactly, she doesn't become anything more than a victim. She did not participate in that attack, whereas if you look at whether it's in our courts or just the way, we in society, we're having the judgment, the judgment, the judgment, absolutely judgment and the shame that's inflicted upon women who are victims of rape, domestic violence and so on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no doubt about it. So yeah, women are choosing the bear. To be real honest, they don't rape you, they don't stalk you, they don't attack you unless they feel attacked.

Speaker 1:

They probably don't know how to gaslight you either I bet they don't right I bet they don't Going back to the question of equity and how we can continue to pursue equity for all people, especially women, and we've been warning others for ages that we must stand in solidarity because the rights we have come to know, as we've discussed, can be, and have been, taken from us. Let's consider some contemporary authors' words, and there are lots of warnings in Margaret Atwood's the Handmaid's Tale, but this one in particular is a very powerful warning and an important thing for us to remember, and this is a quote from the book the Handmaid's Tale. Now I'm awake to the world. I was asleep before. That's how we let it happen. When they slaughtered Congress, we didn't wake up. When they blamed terrorists and suspended the Constitution, we didn't wake up. Then either. Nothing changes instantaneously. In a gradually heating bathtub, you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. It's a powerful quote because it talks about how, very slowly and insidiously, things can be changed Right, and then you get to a point where you have nothing left and you feel like, in retrospect, you see everything Right.

Speaker 1:

There's a study out of Hungary, at a university in Hungary. It's called the Gradual Elimination of Gender Equality. The four Ds distinction, dependence, division and dominance. Tell us about that.

Speaker 2:

Let's look at those four things with regards to Handmaid's Tale the distinction, the division, the dominance, the dependence. They're all there in the Handmaid's Tale. You take each one of those characters and you ask what was of Joseph dependent on? As long as she could breed, as long as she could give a baby, then she could live. Otherwise she was sent to the Clean up the toxic waste.

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Or the Jezebel house or something like that.

Speaker 1:

Which I mean that is a really fascinating part of the Handmaid's Tale is that there still was a trafficking operation of women, so they were looked down upon, but then they were used by men.

Speaker 2:

But the hypocrisy of the commanders who sat around and boasted about how they are pure and they are godly and then they go and participate in human trafficking, Den of iniquity. The taking away women's rights to read, that's another thing. Even if you have written before, this would not be allowed us sitting here talking about this right.

Speaker 2:

But not allowed to read. So how much information then is cut off? The isolation again, that distancing. I thought it was really interesting to lay those four words, those four Ds, over that particular show, and I think, if you pulled up any of the other ones, there's so many out there.

Speaker 1:

It's a brilliant novel, obviously, that we can learn a lot from when we compare it to our current environment, and I think all of us are very aware that what happened in Gilead could happen anywhere.

Speaker 2:

It's happened in other countries, yes yes, absolutely, absolutely, and I go back to the quote that you were talking about. I didn't fight when they did away with Congress. Are we going to fight when that happens? Are we going to arrest these people and then let an executive order let them out of prison that tried to destroy our Capitol? I don't understand where the rage is not. Yes, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

I think that what might be lacking at this moment in time is the unity of the American people to stand together rather than allow ourselves to be divided on the issues and the division which is called out in this study that is being forced upon us Absolutely. If we could band together and become one and really rise up together and say this is what we stand for, this is what we all want and stand for.

Speaker 1:

There's another quote in the Handmaid's Tale where we only wanted to make the world a better place. And better never means better for everyone, for everyone.

Speaker 2:

But it should.

Speaker 1:

It should, it should, it should and it can, but it's going to take a lot of effort.

Speaker 2:

It reminds me of what we talk about with our at Genesis. As you know, we have a men's auxiliary called HEROES, and they are gentle men. It stands for, he Respects Others, and their life's motto is not only am I not going to abuse in my own home, it's not okay with me if it's happening in your home. And whether that's through accountability or whatever efforts they have, these men have come together and said it's just wrong. This is not a gender issue. It is gendered, but it is not a gender issue.

Speaker 2:

Yeah it's not a women's issue, it's not a women's issue Absolutely, because men are sons and brothers and fathers, because it hurts the women in their lives. It hurts their lives as well. And if we could get over which side? Are you an R or a, d, or are you white? Are you of color? If we get past all that crap, then maybe, maybe we could make this country what it ought to be. We could make our community. We can't have safe communities. You can bring in all the National Guard you want to, but our communities will never be safe. Our streets will not be safe if people are not safe in their own homes.

Speaker 1:

You're absolutely right, and so it begs the question then where do we go from here, and what is the vision for the next 40 years at Genesis?

Speaker 2:

The next 40 years is, honest to goodness, I have it already. A little short-range plan for my long-range plan, okay, good, but we continue to recognize what those roadblocks are. Maria, right now, today, we will turn away 50 people on our hotline. We have no more room at our shelter. Now that's not to discourage somebody from calling, because there are other alternatives, alternative programs or programs that we have, like our non-residential or emergency client assistance for a hotel or whatever. I want people to call, I want people to text, but the fact that there is such a shortage of safe beds we are in the next 40 years, you and I are going to have to raise some money and build a larger shelter.

Speaker 2:

I think also, my dream is to change the conversation. I want Genesis to be the thought leader that creates a societal paradigm shift from asking the question why doesn't she get out? For a hundred different reasons to why does he do it? If we could have fixed this with shelters and women's programs, we would have already done it right Over the centuries. We would have already stopped it if we could have this violence against us. And so when does it become a societal norm that hurting your family is unacceptable? What we've accomplished at Genesis is a lot, but it's not nearly enough.

Speaker 2:

These atrocities that impact women not only out on the street, in our voting booth, in our communities, but also in our own homes. We can't fight for women's rights to vote if we're not fighting for the women themselves, if we're not fighting for her right to be safe in her own home, to live abuse-free, to make the choices to travel across state lines or vote the way she wants to vote. It can't happen. As women, as employees of Genesis, as human beings, we need to be able to stand up, turn each to the other and say I'm scared for you.

Speaker 2:

And I think if this community did this across the way, don't even go into who did you vote for or what's happening If we all turned each to the other and said I'm scared for you, there is help and there is hope. What a better community would this be? We don't need the National Guard to make this a safer place for women. We need Genesis. We really do and we do. Unfortunately, we have to be there. But we also need, as we call them, our kitchen table ambassadors to stand up with us and say that violence is never acceptable, that it is pervasive, it is very damaging, very dangerous and it is so often deadly.

Speaker 1:

Circling back to the question about the bear or the man. How do you listeners feel now? Bear attacks are less common than domestic violence, an experience that impacts one in three women in Texas and has traumatizing effects that can last a lifetime. As a call to action today, we urge you to support one another. Equity is not a guarantee and it is something worth fighting for. Jan, thank you for being with me. My pleasure. Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to give women in abusive situations a way out. We are committed to our mission of providing safety, shelter and support for women and children who have experienced domestic violence and to raise awareness regarding its cause, prevalence and impact. Join us in creating a societal shift on how people think about domestic violence. You can learn more at genesisshelterorg and when you follow us on social media on Facebook and Instagram at Genesis Women's Shelter, and on X at Genesis Shelter. The Genesis Helpline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by call or text at 214-946-HELP, 214-946-HELP, 214-946-4357.