Why join us tonight

Why march in Take Back the Night? Take a look at your nearest bulletin board, and a montage of flyers will give you some good reasons. One in four women will experience rape or attempted rape at some point during college. Usually 90 percent of these women knew the perpetrator. As one bold-lettered flyer states, “Sexual violence affects us all.” How so? The chilling testimonials of the speak-out after the march, during which people from the entire University talk anonymously about experiences of sexual violence, continue to reveal this cold fact—it happens here too. In dorms after parties, during orientation week, over winter break—the list goes on. We do not live in isolation. When sexual violence happens to people we love and cherish, often we feel violated too. How could someone be so fundamentally disrespectful to a friend?

People inevitably ask what good it does to march. Can public protest do anything to change the course of private acts? Many of us have sought to articulate how exactly a march and speak-out can prevent sexual violence. Ending this violence is about changing culture. It means eliminating the stigma commonly associated with having been raped through creating a space that will provide support. Seeing our peers on the streets, united in their convictions, inspires the reflection necessary for cultural change. “Cultural change” means examining our society’s attitudes toward sex, toward relationships, and toward power. As an individual experiences his or her voice blending with hundreds of others, one asks: what is my role in this? What can I do to prevent sexual violence? How can I reach out to those who have been affected and empathize with their experiences?

The T-shirts this year read, “Tonight is a night of survival, in the most active sense of the word.” Together, the TBTN march and speak-out create a rare space in which survivors may take important steps in a process of healing and reflection. Our purpose is to commemorate those who have survived, and to honor resilience, recognizing that it is survival and not victimhood that has allowed each one to reach this point in his or her life. The march is an opportunity for co-survivors—those who supported, cared for, and listened to survivors—to express their pain, and their commitment to ending sexual violence. For allies of the movement, the march fulfills a similar purpose.

Take Back the Night isn’t only about protest, or even prevention. In turn, prevention is not about flirting less, drinking less, or even simply locking up those who have raped. Nor is it exclusively about self-defense or saying no in a louder voice. Preventing sexual assault means looking at the way we live our lives and treat our intimate partners. We march, not because most sexual assaults take place in dark alleyways, perpetrated by strange men, but because the narrative of violence causes us to feel unsafe as women and men walking home late at night.

We march down Broadway and Amsterdam, reclaiming the spaces that have caused us pain. As a collective of survivors and co-survivors, we pass a dorm, fraternity, or sorority and learn when something has happened. Some of these places have more significance than others. For some people, a dorm will elicit the memory of a crush, or a really good party. For someone else, it is about being pushed too far, where the limits she set were invalidated or dismissed, where you were taken advantage of, or where you were too drunk to express consent. We face what we know, and remind ourselves that it is in that place that change must happen.

We march as a community. Inclusiveness must be a priority. Sexual violence is a problem in all communities, and excluding one from the evening—because of religious observances, for example—would be antithetical to the mission of the march. It is for this reason that this year’s march has been pushed from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., to respect the end of Passover. Hopefully, this will ensure that all those who would like to march may do so. This is not an ideal solution, but given the schedule of the semester, it is the only possible day.

Take Back the Night has a 21-year history at Barnard and Columbia. We have seen changes occur in the University community and in the organization of the march itself. Please join us in pushing the movement further.

Linnea Hincks is a Columbia College junior majoring in comparative literature and society. She is the co-coordinator of Take Back the Night. Kabita Parajuli is a Columbia College junior majoring in comparative literature and society. She is the treasurer of Take Back the Night.