Take Back the Night attendees marched down Commonwealth Avenue, carrying banners, signs and yelling chants of female empowerment.
‘Join together, free our lives, we will not be victimized!’ shouted the crowd of about 50 as they walked from the Boston University Beach to West Campus.
Friday’s march focused on raising awareness of sexual assault and was hosted by The Feminist Collective, which according to their Facebook page is BU’s ‘unofficial collectively-run feminist action group.”
The first part of the night was held in the Women’s Resource Center in the basement of the George Sherman Union, where College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Elisa Gill and CAS junior Meghan Faulkner cited various statistics on rape and sexual assault.’
‘One in six women and one in 33 men reported an attempted or completed rape at some time in their lives,’ Gill said. ‘If this was any other crisis, this would be considered a public health crisis.’
Gill said 90 percent of rape survivors on college campuses know their attacker.
Maureen Mahoney, crisis intervention counselor for the past 16 years at BU’s Student Health Services, said people want to think that those they know will not hurt them.
‘It causes you to rethink your judgment, your sense of safety in the world,’ Mahoney said. ‘We think it’s the other that’s going to do us harm, not someone who’s just like us.’
Mahoney said although it is not a written rule at BU due to liability, she cannot remember the last time someone was punished after they reported being assaulted if they were under the influence at the time of the assault.’
‘Students who have been sexually assaulted and who have been drinking underage are not faced with sanctions or consequences for the alcohol use,’ Mahoney said.
Faulkner and Gill also discussed Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti’s book ‘Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape’ and the idea of enthusiastic consent.
Faulkner said enthusiastic consent means that ‘in any sexual situation, both partners will be into it and enthusiastically consenting.’
‘The absence of no doesn’t mean yes,’ she said. ‘That’s one of the most important things to get across. Any coercion, that’s rape. If the person is saying yes because they’re really drunk and don’t know what’s going on, that’s rape.’
The group shared experiences with rape and sexual assault in a speak-out session after everyone moved to the BU Beach to stand in a circle, hold candles and offer consolation.
Some in attendance said they already knew the statistics and their opinions were not changed much by the event.
‘I pretty much knew the statistics, but a lot of people haven’t heard them,’ College of Communication senior Yekaterina Blinova said.
She said she feels safe at BU, calling it ‘one of the safer campuses.”
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