Students rally against sexual violence and abuse

Yesterday evening, Penn students took back the night.

Take Back the Night, an initiative addressing sexual violence and abuse, brought students together for a rally on College Green and to hear a survivor speak out on Wynn Commons. The event also included several speakers and slam poets from Excelano, Penn's spoken word project, and a march around campus.

The event is held at many colleges and universities around the country, though it may be rooted in protests against fear and violence on city streets that London women held over 100 years ago. Today, the events generally address domestic assault, sexual abuse, stalking and other forms of violence or harassment against women.

While the details of the event change depending on the campus where it is held, last night's focused on empowering students, even those who have not been directly affected, rather than healing, said Jessica Mertz, Penn Women's Center's violence prevention educator.

Lauren Willner, PWC's graduate-student intern, added that the event was meant to highlight the pervasiveness of issues of sexual violence and to emphasize that everyone is affected by it.

While the event was missing from campus for several years, Mertz and Willner agreed that this was due primarily to the transience of the student groups and organizations who put on the event in the past.

"It kind of fell through the cracks," Mertz said.

However, in an attempt to circumvent that issue in the future, the organizers are trying to make the event independent and sustainable by securing officers and organizers for it before the end of this year so they can start work on it immediately next fall.

Willner said this year's planning committee did not encounter any issues regarding the event's absence from campus. Instead, they used it as a type of outreach.

"The students were able to be creative however they wanted without having to do it the way it was done before," Mertz said. "They can make it their own, not just keep doing the same thing."

And make it their own they did. College seniors and co-chairwomen of the Penn Consortium of Undergraduate Women Abby Dosoretz and Brooke Boyarsky agreed that TBTN would serve better as an independent, rather than PCUW, event. This will allow it to be more inclusive and gain the support of the whole Penn community.

"There is a lot of conversation on campus about women's issues, many of which go unaddressed," Boyarsky said. "What better way to bring it to the forefront than to have the whole school address it?"

The goals of the event were to reduce the stigma of discussing sexual violence on campus as well to showcase Penn's numerous resources and to unify the community, Dosoretz added.

Willner agreed, adding that "the services and support are all in place, should things happen here."

"We're here to take back the night," Mertz said during the rally. "We're here to take it all back."

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