The Center for Advocacy, Prevention and Empowerment (CAPE), part of the Health and Counseling Center (HCC), is co-sponsoring a week of featured events for Sexual Assault Awareness Week (SAAW) from April 21-25. The events this year are geared towards inclusive excellence, and tying national and international movements to the DU campus.
The week includes days to dress differently in order to show support and awareness, acclaimed speakers and challenges leading up to the final event, the Consent Carnival, which will take place on Thursday, April 24. Co-sponsors of SAAW include the Relationship Equality Anti-Violence League, USG Diversity Committee, Greek Council, PIORadio, Social Sustainability Task Force, Alpha Phi Omega, DU Programming Board and the Department of Campus Safety.

According to Gillian Kaag, program director for CAPE, the events are geared towards bringing attention to national movements such as International Denim Day and the Clothesline Project, and localizing them to the DU campus.
According to the SAAW page on the HCC website, the Clothesline Project started as a means for women who have been affected by violence to express themselves by decorating a t-shirt. Then the shirts are hung on clotheslines to display in order to raise awareness about sexual violence, hate crimes and child abuse.

On Tuesday, April 22 in Davis Auditorium there will be a Take Back the Night event. Take Back the Night is an extension of a movement that began in the 1970s in Germany in response to a series of sexual assaults and murders, according to the SAAW page. Dr. Caroline Heldman will speak at DU’s Take Back the Night event with a presentation titled “The Sexy Lie: Hidden Harms of Sexual Objectification and What We Can Do About It.”

Heldman is the chair of the Politics Department at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She has been involved in the documentary “Miss Representation” and co-edited “Rethinking Madame President: Are We Ready for a Woman in the White House?” Heldman is also a commentator on radio and television.

“We are excited to bring in such a nationally recognized speaker. She will speak about identifying the problem with consent and provide concrete actions we can do as a community to end sexual violence,” said Kaag.

Heldman will also participate in the Take Back the Night march led by the Pioneer Leadership Program (PLP).

Wednesday, April 23 is International Denim Day. Students are encouraged to wear denim to class and work to promote awareness. According to the SAAW page, Denim Day is an international protest that began after the Italian Supreme Court overruled a rape conviction on the premise that jeans are too difficult to remove and the assailant would not have been able to do so without the victim’s assistance.

Also on Wednesday, HCC’s CAPE and DU’s Intramural Sports are collaborating on the first annual Denim Day Intramural Sports Challenge. The event is taking place at the new Diane Wendt Sports Fields (north of the soccer stadium) from 7-10 p.m. Co-ed kickball teams will be playing to the best of their ability in denim.

“We really wanted to get DU students aware and involved in national and popular campaigns [such as] Denim Day,” said Kaag. “We’ve had an interest in reaching out to sports, so we reached out to the Intramural Club and asked if they were interested in co-partnering the event with us. We wanted a fun way to give recognition to a really important day.”

Finally, on Thursday, April 24 there will be a Consent Carnival from 12-4 p.m. on Driscoll Green, including food, entertainment, prizes and music. According to the SAAW page, the event will be focused on educating members of the DU community on the importance of consent, as well as how to ask for and give consent in their relationships.
The Carnival will feature various DU groups running booths and activities. According to Kaag, CAPE wanted to provide DU organizations with an opportunity to highlight specific groups, but also to tie the event into the DU community. The booths will feature various activities geared towards the Carnival’s overall theme of consent, according to Kaag, and many booths and activities will have prizes.
“The booths are designed to be fun but also to educate,” said Kaag. “For example, students can win prizes for de-bunking rape myths, [which are] things like depending on what you wear or if you’re too drunk to give consent.”
Several of these rape myths are also de-bunked on posters that have been featured around campus as part of the “Be a BOSS” campaign. The posters feature rape myths to draw attention and then quotes to de-bunk them, according to Kaag.

Kaig said this is the second year that the Consent Carnival is being hosted due to its popularity last year.
“We’re really putting an emphasis on inclusive excellence this year,” said Kaag. “We would like to continue hosting it as long as it’s something that will attract students and that they can enjoy. Last year the ‘Consent is Sexy’ t-shirts were really popular so we wanted to continue it.”
However, Kaag says CAPE will adjust future events in order to meet the needs of the community and provide students with events they want to attend.

“We are really excited about doing all of the programming and hope students will come out to the event,” said Kaag. “We are open to meeting the needs of our students and would love feedback about what students want to see and do on our website or on our Facebook.”