As part of Sexual Assault Awareness Week, 30 students, faculty and guests participate in the “Symposium on Consuming Misogyny” in Sturm Hall, a day-long event on Friday, where issues of misogyny were discussed in the context of the media, human trafficking and sexual violence.
Participants were provided with lunch while they listened to keynote speakers A.J. Alejano- Steel, professor of psychology and women’s studies at Metropolitan State College of Denver, and Anders Minter, who has a degree in political science and diversity and social justice and is a graduate student at the University of Colorado Denver.
They spoke about the production and consumption of gendered narratives and how they contribute to and perpetuate sexual violence, human trafficking and the sex industry.
The keynote address was titled, “Hot off the Assembly Line:B How Women Have Become the Must-have Item of this New Millennium.”
Using the metaphor of toy Legos, Alejano-Steel and Minter passed out a small toy piece to every attendee and dissected its meaning.
They focused on naming the Lego in its entirety as the foundation for misogyny, while the knob connectors on top were the components in the media and society that hold the Legos together.
The goal, they said, was to break off these knobs that hold together the existing systems that promote sexual violence or to construct new “Legos.”
Several videos were shown throughout the presentation that allowed the audience to participate and critique them.
Participants then formed small groups for breakout sessions on different topics.
These topics included gender in popular music, global human trafficking, Greek organizations, religion and politics and reality Television.
Each was led by experts in the areas. Participants dialogued about issues within the media and society and then came together to share with the larger group at the end of the day.
In reconvening, participants in each session were asked to share what they had learned and activist steps toward changing the perpetuation of sexual violence.
Alejano-Steel and Minters encouraged discussion.
“What’s hard is you don’t get to see the other sessions,” said Alejano-Steel, also director of the Institute for Women’s Studies and Services at Metropolitan State College of Denver.
The speakers wrapped up the symposium and event coordinators Karen Benson, director of Partners in Learning, and Lisa Ingarfield, program director of Gender Violence Education and Support Services at DU, ended the event with encouraging remarks. Ingarfield offered her favorite quote encouraging the audience to take action in order to see change.
“Change the way you look at things and the look of things will change,” said Ingarfield.
This year’s theme of sexual assault week was “Sex, Media and Power.”
The events aimed to analyze the influence of media, power and the construction of sex in American society and how these influences support sexual violence. B
The symposium was developed by a planning committee of students and faculty across campus who wanted to give a different perspective on misogyny.
With hip-hop expert Byron Hurt wrapping up the week-long events, the committee took measures not to target hip-hop as the cause of misogyny and sexual violence in today’s world.
The symposium focused instead on the roles of producers and consumers of these various media texts and discussed how the problem is being perpetuated.
“Consumers bear heavy responsibility,” Ingarfield noted. “The goal is to shift focus from the producers of misogyny to consumers.”
