By: Dani James, W*SS Undergraduate Intern
TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual Assault, Assault, Rape, Violence
Violence against women and gender based violence as a whole has been a detrimental issue since the beginning of time. Throughout most of global history, rape was not viewed as a crime as women were once considered property, and thus had no rights to their own body. Martial assault wasn't even outlawed in the United States until 1978. Recent studies done by the World Bank Organization shows that 35% of women worldwide have or will experience either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner violence in their lifetime. Thats 1 in 3 women who will experience sexual violence AT LEAST once in their lifetime. With an increase in advocacy for women*s rights, social movements such as #MeToo, End Violence against Women, Its On Us, and Take Back the Night came into light. In this Zine, we will be focusing on the Take Back the Night foundation and the history of the movement. After a large number of instances of sexual violence against women started gaining traction in the media, women all over the world took to the street to protest the unsafe conditions women have to face on a day to day basis. Take Back the Night first showed up in a title for a 1977 memorial read by Anne Pride at an anti-violence rally in Pittsburgh. Then 3 years later, one of the first board members for Take Back the Night, Laura Lederer, wrote a book addressing and analyzing the root causes and effects of violence against women has on society. Laura titled this book, Take Back the Night. This book as well as many other written works addressing gender based violence helped not only spread the word on these issues, but created a movement that sparked many different rallies, protests, and marches all with Taking Back the Night as their focal point. In the 2010’s, we saw universities all across the country develop their own version of Take Back the Night with different events and themes dedicated to shedding light on the prevalence of domestic and sexual violence as well as working towards transforming the culture that perpetuates and allows these horrific actions to continue. April 12th - 18th at Michigan State University is the It’s on Us and Take Back the Night week where many different organizations are coming together to break the silence around these forms of abuse and to empower survivors through a series of events. Linked below is the information for both Take Back the Night and It’s on Us week here at MSU and I highly encourage checking them out. It is up to all of us to not only acknowledge the systemic and persistent issues of gender based violence, but also to work towards a world that finds this behavior unacceptable and will do everything in their power to change it.
Michigan State University Resources : Take Back the Night It’s on Us
Zine References: https://takebackthenight.org/history/ https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/socialsustainability/brief/violence-against-women-and-girls https://www.resourcesharingproject.org/brief-history-anti-rape-movement
Survivor Resources: https://poe.msu.edu/ https://centerforsurvivors.msu.edu/ https://www.rainn.org/national-resources-sexual-assault-survivors-and-their-loved-ones https://www.nsvrc.org/survivors
Interested in sharing your own "Thought Of The Day" or TOTD? Email us at wss@msu.edu.
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