Walking back from class today I was approached by a young woman who attempted to get me to sign up for Take Back the Night. Take Back the Night an annual feminist, anti-rape demonstration where people (mostly women) walk around campus blowing whistles to, well, take back the night. Right now campus buildings are flooded with anti-rape t-shirts hanging from the ceilings and Take Back the Night volunteers who ask for the student body's participation daily.
I'm not a rapist and my opposition to rape is stronger than simply disapproving of it because it is wrong. As I have stated in many of my previous blogs, subjugation of the vulnerable leaves me distraught. I also have a strong tendency to dislike and look down upon protesting and/or activism that is rather inefficacious. Take Back the Night is one such case of activism in my mind. Furthermore, it's extremely annoying.
The time and resources spent on Take Back the Night could be reallocated to more effective anti-rape initiatives. For example, why spend money on t-shirts and walk around campus blowing whistles when you could use that money to buy every woman a whistle instead? Frankly, women should probably be buying their own whistles; it isn't a major investment.
Take Back the Night is an idealist concept much like the death penalty. In the end, you don't actually take back the night. Those who were raped were still raped and that will never change, even if you want it to by walking around campus blowing whistles.
Maybe if they stopped blowing so many whistles all at once the women would be able to hear the footsteps of a rapist and have time to fend for themselves. It's loud enough from inside a building, imagine how deafening it is for all those women to blow them at the same time. The result must cause quite a bit of ear damage.
Rape doesn't make me upset, it makes me angry. But Take Back the Night makes me angry too (although it bears mentioning that the levels of anger generated don't quite parallel one another). I'm all for effective change and denouncing rape but the key word is effective.
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It's been my experience that the campus police are more than willing to work with students to offer rape/aggression defense classes.
I think learning basic defense moves just might be a little bit more effective than wearing a "rape is bad" t-shirt.
It's good that shirts are promoting awareness and stuff but, you're right. That awareness isn't going to do much good without acting on it.
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What I was thinking in the beginning of this entry was probably a little crazy, but here goes anyway:
If so many people are going around blowing whistles...what if someone happens to be attacked on that night? WHen they blow that whistle, nobody will get the idea! Oops.
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Current Anti-rape gigs are not progressive?
Every organism's heartbeat holds a universe of beauty at http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/green-underbelly