23rd February 2026
PAC NYC and Equality Now invite you to a special panel discussion inspired by Giulia, Jennifer Nettles’ new play about 17th century historical figure Giulia Tofana. Though 375 years old, Giulia’s story of constrained choices, power, violence, and dependence resonates deeply today.
Drawing on Giulia’s story, this conversation will explore how gender-based violence, structural inequality in law and policy, and evolving norms around marriage and partnership continue to shape women’s lives, and what legal, economic, and cultural shifts are needed to ensure stories like Giulia’s cannot exist in the future.
Featuring Jennifer Nettles, Jane Manning, Director at Women’s Equal Justice, and Equality Now’s Mona Sinha and Antonia Kirkland, the panel will examine the intersection of art, justice, and women’s rights, connecting lived experience with systemic change.
Advocates, academics, artists, policy leaders, and anyone committed to gender equality.
Monday, 16 March 2026
6:00 PM EST
Perelman Performing Arts Center, New York
Register now to join us for this timely and thought-provoking evening.
Jennifer Nettles is a GRAMMY-winning, Emmy-winning superstar entertainer on multiple platforms. She most recently appeared in Blumhouse’s new take of The Exorcist and returns seasonally in the HBO hit series The Righteous Gemstones as series favorite, Aimee-Leigh. She also delivered a powerful and provocative performance in Focus Features’ Harriet Tubman biopic. In April she will be starring in Amazon Prime’s new series The Bondsman, alongside Kevin Bacon.
Musically she recently earned an Emmy for Best Original Song for “Life is Sweet” featured in PBS’ American Anthems. Her latest solo album Always Like New is a genre-defying collection of American songbook classics. As half of the multi-platinum Country duo Sugarland, she just completed touring with Little Big Town, promoting their new single collaboration on the cover of Phil Collins’ hit “Take Me Home”, as well as Sugarland’s EP There Goes The Neighborhood, which was released this summer.
Sugarland’s song “Stay”, written solely by Jennifer, was a platinum No. 1 hit which earned her two GRAMMY Awards for Best Country Song as writer and Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group. Nettles also earned a third GRAMMY for her collaboration with Bon Jovi on “Who Says You Can’t Go Home”. Her other achievements in music include five ASCAP awards, six ACM Awards, five CMA Awards, the Human Rights Campaign’s Ally for Equality Award, and the Artist Impact Award from Lincoln Center. Her Broadway credits include her debut as Roxy Hart in the legendary production of Chicago in 2015, most recently, starring as Jenna in the smash-hit musical Waitress.
Jane Manning is director of Women’s Equal Justice and an advocate for survivors of sexual assault. She began her career as a prosecutor of domestic violence, sex crimes, and child abuse. In private practice, she successfully represented a coalition of battered women’s organizations arguing amici curiae against a ruling allowing men who murdered wives or girlfriends to invoke the victim’s “nagging” as grounds for a reduced charge. She then served as a human rights attorney with Equality Now, where she helped draft New York’s first anti-trafficking statute.
As president / chair of the National Organization for Women-NYC she helped draft NY’s anti-strangulation statute and helped lead a successful campaign to eliminate New York’s statute of limitations on rape. She has trained prosecutors on interviewing crime victims and served as an adjunct professor at Hunter College.
As Director of Women’s Equal Justice, she partners with survivor-leaders to improve the justice system’s response to the violent and under-prosecuted crime of drug-facilitated sexual assault, and to demand access to justice for gender-based violence as a civil right.
Mona Sinha is a globally recognized advocate for gender equality. She brings over 25 years of experience strengthening mission-driven organizations to Equality Now. Aligning her passion for social justice and women’s empowerment with her early experience working in the corporate sector, she has enabled over 90 organizations that unlock the economic potential and protect the legal rights of women, girls, and gender non-conforming people.
With her deep understanding of the women’s rights ecosystem, Mona has led and catalyzed over $1 billion to fund progressive projects, initiatives, and grassroots movements that elevate women’s economic agency and amplify women leaders. All on a global scale. Mona serves on several nonprofit boards focusing on governance, strategy, and sustainability. She is the Vice Chair of the Executive Council of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, slated to be built on the Washington Mall within the decade. She is an Advisory Board member of the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise at Columbia University and serves on the Tamer Venture Fund Board.
Formerly, Mona chaired the Women Moving Millions’ Board and Equal Rights Amendment Coalition’s Fund for Women’s Equality. She is a trustee emerita (Vice Chair) of her alma mater, Smith College. In 2022, she was awarded the Smith College Medal for her bold feminist leadership in stewarding a trans-inclusive admissions policy and her critical role in fundraising $486M for the school’s Women for the World campaign.
She has served in various leadership capacities on the Boards of Connected Women Leaders, Apne Aap International, Columbia Global Mental Health Program in partnership with WHO, Breakthrough USA, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy. She co-founded the Asian Women’s Leadership University College in Malaysia to bring the liberal arts education model to women across the region.
Antonia Kirkland is a human rights lawyer with an intricate working knowledge of how to use international law and human rights mechanisms to advance gender equality for all women and girls. She is currently the Director, Legal Equality & UN Liaison at Equality Now. In this role, Antonia provides thought leadership and technical legal support to hold governments accountable under international law to uphold all women’s and girls’ rights.
She serves on the Steering Committees of UN Women’s Equality in Law for Women and Girls by 2030, the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, and the Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law, and served on the Global Programme Advisory Committee (GPAC) of the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women for 10 years. Antonia has been part of the Equality Now family for over 20 years and has worked across all of the organization’s program areas, including ending sexual violence, online and offline, and ending harmful practices, and has contributed to Equality Now’s work in the reform of over 130 laws.
Previously, Antonia was the coordinator of the Next Generation Leadership program at the Rockefeller Foundation and served as a consultant for Equality Now on an amicus brief for a case before the US Supreme Court on nationality rights.
Register now