Cheers of ‘women’s bodies, women’s lives, we will not be terrorized’ rang through the night as Boston University students marched down Commonwealth Avenue Thursday to raise awareness about sexual assault.’
More than 60 marchers wore facts and statistics about sexual assault on their shirts as they walked from Marsh Plaza to West Campus. Some shirts read, ’60 percent of rape/sexual assaults are not reported to the police.’
The ‘Take Back the Night’ march, organized by the BU Feminist Collective, was the conclusion of a nightlong event intended to raise awareness about sexual assault.’
‘It’s a suppressed issue,’ Cristina Inceu, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said. ‘Our point is to bring it attention.’
Inceu, a member of the Collective, said planning for the event began in January when a group of students branched out from the Women’s Resource Center to establish the Feminist Collective, which Inceu described as ‘an activist group.”
Member and CAS junior Jessie Lathrop said BU does not address rape well.’
Lathrop said BU orientation ‘spends more time talking about fakes [IDs] than rape.’
BU had 34 reported cases of forcible sex offenses from 2003 to 2007, according to BU Police Department crime statistics.
‘As an American society, we are very awkward about talking about sex,’ Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore said.
However, Elmore said BU tries to educate the student body as much as possible at orientation and with information about sexual assault on the BU Police Department and Student Health Services websites.
‘There is a whole host of things that we could be educating students about, but there is only so much that you can do,’ Elmore said. ‘We have to rely on the community to educate itself.’
College of General Studies freshman Eddie Yang said he watched as the chanting marchers passed Sleeper Hall Thursday night.’
‘I feel like we should know more about specific cases, even if names aren’t given,’ he said. ‘It will make it more real for us.’
Elmore said he would like to share as much information as possible with students. However, he said laws in the state prevent this.
‘You want to respect the person who has been victimized,’ he said
To bring awareness to campus, Alexis, who works for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center Survivor Speakers’ Bureau, spoke before the march.’
Alexis, who wished only to be identified by her first name, spoke before a largely female crowd at the Women’s Resource Center about when she was raped in a Boston area college dormitory in 2001.’
‘Bruises heal, I’m changed forever,’ she said.
Alexis said she had a bad experience when she first told someone her story.
‘Just listen,’ she said. ‘Don’t judge.’
After Alexis spoke, the Collective invited marchers to speak out about their own experiences in a candlelit ‘safe circle.” Students told stories about their own sexual assault or that of their mothers, friends and sisters.
Andrew Whiteman, a CAS freshman, said he was at the event to support friends.’
‘I was really surprised by the number of people that spoke,’ Whiteman, one of the few men in the march, said. ‘I didn’t expect that.’
‘If students think twice about sexual assault before going out on the weekends, then we’ve accomplished something,’ College of Communication sophomore Jessica Bartlett said.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
