“Wherever we go, however we dress, ‘no’ means ‘no’ and ‘yes’ means ‘yes.’”
This chant and many others rang through the night on Tuesday, April 22 as students, led by Campus Safety and the Pioneer Leadership Program, marched through DU’s grounds illuminated by electric candles and positive energy. This march was in protest of sexual assault and is known as “Take Back the Night,” or TBTN, which was part of Sexual Awareness Week. For almost an hour, roughly 50 men and women of many different backgrounds marched through campus, chanting positive messages in unison. Protesters included LGBTQ and gender and women’s studies students as well as other groups of different disciplines that also wanted to be a part of the fight against sexual harassment.
According to DU’s Center for Advocacy, Prevention and Empowerment, also known as CAPE, TBTN is an international phenomenon that began in the early 1970s in Germany in response to a series of sexual assaults and murders. Sexual Assault Awareness Week also included events such as a presentation on sexual objectification by Caroline Heldman, an assistant professor at Occidental College in LA. She also appears in the film “Miss Representation.”
Heldman’s presentation, which preceded TBTN, was entitled “The Sexy Lie: Hidden Harms of Sexual Objectification & What We Can Do About It,” and focused on the dangers of sexual objectification by others as well as self-inflicted objectification. According to Heldman, this form of self-critique can lead to higher levels of depression, eating disorders and anxiety.
Determined to stress the magnitude of the problems that objectification present, Heldman explained, “Dehumanization of a group is the first step towards legitimizing and encouraging violence against a group.”
Heldman’s explanation that dehumanization is closely linked to violence is important to understanding why women and other minority groups are frequently victims of violence, and that steps needed to be taken. At this point, Heldman introduced her plan of action to push back against objectification.
“[Value] yourself in ways other than your body, [enjoy] your body as a physical instrument, [focus] on personal development, [recognize] pain and [call] out objectification when you see it,” said Heldman.
As the presentation came to a close, Heldman was asked what she would like students to walk away with, and she directed the question to the audience. Students like freshman Lori Scott, a gender and women’s studies major from Denver, expressed what she thought was important to remember and share from the presentation. Scott earnestly stated her opinion on the importance of challenging superficiality and focusing on what, in her opinion, matters most.
“[Students should walk away knowing] the value of yourself and everyone around you—not just viewing, but appreciating,” said Scott.
She referred to the importance of basing impressions of people off of personality rather than how they are often objectively defined.
Similarly, University College student from Denver, Fredericka Banks, insisted that to fight objectification, it is imperative for women to put aside their differences and be united in empowerment.
“Women across all cultural bridges need to say ‘stop’ [to sexual objectification] or they have already lost. Every woman [no matter her background] is a woman,” said Banks.
Various other events took place throughout the week, all with goals of raising awareness about sexual assault. One such event was Denim Day, which is an international protest responding to the Italian Supreme Court’s overruling of a rape conviction in 1999, as noted by CAPE. When an Italian woman was raped, the jury found her perpetrator guilty, but the Supreme Court ruled that her jeans were too tight to remove and that she must have helped her assailant. On Wednesday, students wore denim in recognition of the struggles faced by victims of sexual assault to raise awareness.
Students also decorated t-shirts in Nelson Hall with empowering statements about surviving sexual assault, known as the Clothesline Project. According to the CAPE website, the event began as a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a t-shirt, which is then hung on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence.
On Thursday April 24, the Consent Carnival, which was hosted and DJed by KXDU, took place on Driscoll Green. According to CAPE, this event focused on the importance of obtaining consent in the context of intimate relations and helping students learn and practice both how to ask for and to give consent in their relationships.
As Sexual Assault Awareness Week has come to a close, what steps should continue to be taken? DU junior in the gender and women’s studies program from St. Louis, Missouri, Marin Klostermeier, offered suggestions as to how the DU community should cooperate and work to reduce the amount of incidents on and around campus.
“It is critical for DU and CAPE to work together. This way the resources that the school has can power the knowledge and skills that [members of] CAPE have. [The next step is] to work towards changing the culture existing on campus that makes people think it is okay to commit acts of sexual violence,” said Klostermeier.
If you or anyone you know is suffering from being a victim of sexual assault, student are encouraged to contact the Center for Prevention, Advocacy and Empowerment in the Health and Counseling Center.
