I WENT to the Take Back the Night Rally for the first time my second year. It didn't really affect me. I'm not so good at dealing with emotions to start with, and then to have people behind a dark screen whom I couldn't see, whom I didn't know, made everything very distant. Don't misunderstand, I thought it was a great event. I thought it was an amazing example of strength, a good way to raise awareness about a seldom-discussed issue, and an excellent opportunity for the community to come together; it just didn't hit me in the gut. It wasn't until my friends began telling me their personal stories that I really began to understand exactly how prevalent sexual assault and domestic violence are.
It's not all that surprising that I didn't get the full effect of Take Back The Night the first time. For one little event, it's got a pretty tall task. TBTN tries to raise awareness about resources on Grounds, raise awareness of the prevalence of sexual violence on Grounds, provide a forum of healing for survivors and impress upon people that the event shouldn't be a one night thing but rather a year-round mentality. Whew. That's a lot for one night. Which was why, this year, I decided to head out to a few of the other TBTN events.
In addition to the more well known rally, TBTN hosted several other events throughout the week. I ended up attending three events (including the rally), the first of which was the "Dating a Survivor" panel. While the panel didn't necessarily focus as much on the "how to" of dating a survivor as it could have, the event still went really well for a couple of reasons.
The first was that there was a clear effort towards great diversity in the panel, not only in terms of race and sex,but also in terms of type of sexual assault -- there were examples of childhood molestation, domestic violence, sexual assault and acquaintance rape. Having such a diverse panel went a long way towards helping people understand the many different types of sexual abuse that can occur.
It was also, quite frankly, amazing to see a group of people willing to sit in front of a large audience and tell such personal stories. Seeing this incredible strength was, for me, almost more profound than going to the rally. I also appreciated the panel's discussion of the fact that it is perfectly possible for men to be sexually assaulted, and in many cases much harder for them to come forward.
The mock trial panel put on by the Sexual Assault Board was less emotionally moving, but very helpful in making more transparent a process that has always been clouded in a fairly thick cloak of secrecy and legal jargon. For those of us who are fourth years, the SAB will be best remembered for the hooplah that surrounded it first year because it featured a clause that, in retrospect, turned out to be a bit illegal (oops). After a few protests, the policy was changed. The biggest change is that now a letter stating the outcome of the trial, in brief, is provided to both the defendant and the accused. The idea being that the trial itself can be discussed, just not specific aspects of what went on during the trial. If there was anything about the SAB trial that could have been made more apparent in the presentation, it would have been a clarification of exactly what the new changes were and what they meant. While an overview of the changes are available online on the Sexual Assault portion of the University Judiciary Committee's Web site, they're not exactly transparent. Seeing the way the process worked, however, and understanding the different punishments available did make the whole thing seem a lot more visible, which was very enlightening.
One of the main focuses of TBTN is the idea that it's not just one night but a movement as a whole. We should concentrate on the issues surrounding sexual assault every day, andthe University community and the administration should make an effort to prevent sexual assault and help survivors by making sexual assault easier to report and by providing many options and support for people once they have reported sexual assault. To try to impress all of this onto people is a heavy task for one vigil. This is precisely why it's great that there is more than one event to handle the pressure, and why students should take advantage of that.
Margaret Sessa-Hawkins's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at msessahawkins@cavalierdaily.com.
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