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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Women Unite to Take Back the Night |
Current rating: 0 |
by Zachary Miller
Email: wolfgang (nospam) wolfgang.groogroo.com (unverified!) |
20 Apr 2001
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Over 400-500 women and men gathered today at the Take Back the Night rally at 7pm at the quad. The rally was organized and supported by over 45 organizations. The theme was fighting sexual violence and linking that fight to other struggles against discrimination and for social justice. |
Over 450 women and men gathered today at the Take Back the Night rally at 7pm at the quad. The rally was organized and supported by over 45 organizations. The theme was fighting sexual violence and linking that fight to other struggles against discrimination and for social justice.
After introductory remarks from a Women's Direct Action Coalition organizer the first speakers were representatives from Sluts Against Rape, an ad hoc informal organization expressing the belief that women should have the right to be sexual in any way they choose and that women are never at fault for being raped. Sluts Against Rape seeks to focus on women as sexual agents rather than sexual victims. The speakers expressed support for the expression of sexuality by all women including straight and queer, women of color, and sexual workers.
Debbie Sheldon spoke about unifying the movements for disabled rights and women's rights. She said that 80% of cognitively disabled women are raped and 40% of them are raped more than 10 times.
Jessie Baugher, a member of WDAC and one of the main organizers of the event, got the crowd fired up with a general orientation to Take Back the Night issues and issues about violence against women. There was a moment of silence for Maria Pia Gratton who was raped and murdered at UIUC in 1995.
Finally Melinda Corazon Foley, a woman born in the Philppines to parents of different shades, raised in Virginia, and currently living in Los Angeles gave the key note address in the form of a spoken word poetry performance which drove the crowd wild.
Then the march began with over 400-450 women participating. While the rally had men and women participating the organizers limitted the march itself to women.
I spoke with one marcher about why the march was women only and she said that in past similar events where men were participating there have been incidents where the marchers were confronted by men who harrassed the marchers and the sympathetic men in the march in turn (meaning well) aggressively confronted the harrassers. The problem is that this creates a situation of men rushing to the aid of women and acting in a protector role which reinforces the kind of stereotypes about power that the march seeks to destroy. So a tactical and philosophical decision is made to exclude men and to create a women's space during the march. None of the male supporters I spoke to at the Rally had any bad feelings about this decision.
While the women marched (for about an hour) about 20-30 of the men who were at the rally met in a discussion circle facilitated by Men Against Sexual Violence. The discussion focused on how male supporters of the women's movement can aid the movement, how men can educate other men about the realities of sexual violence, how men can help destroy the social assumptions that support a culture of sexual violence, and about what kinds of direct action Men Against Sexual Violence can take to help expand awareness about men who are feminists.
Members of the mainstream television and print media were present throughout the event and during the march. Apparently marchers had some kind of issue with one of the male reporters who did not respect the women only space that the march was intended to create. Apparently the marchers had some kind of issue with the police who threatened to arrest some of the march's security volunteers. Apparently someone on the second floor balcony of a frat exposed himself to the marchers on John street and the police refused to do anything about it. Since I wasn't at the march I have no details on these incidents, I hope someone can shed some light on this, especially since these are the very issues that will not be covered by the mainstream media. |
