Ohio U’s Women’s Center hosts virtual Take Back the Night event
Artwork at 2019 in-person Take Back the Night event in Baker Ballroom. Photo by Sarah Donaldson.
Ohio University’s Women’s Center held its annual Take Back the Night event virtually Thursday night over Microsoft Teams.
Take Back the Night provides students and community members with an outlet to share experiences with sexual violence and to offer help to those in need.
In previous years, attendees listened to speeches by survivors and advocates, marched through Athens and participated in a fire pit ceremony. The latter was replaced with a cord-cutting meditation to help survivors separate themselves from those who hurt them.
This year, the Women’s Center held a livestream of the event and also encouraged people to participate and share their stories on social media using the hashtag #SurvivorsUniteTBTN.
Take Back the Night was originally scheduled to start at 6 p.m., but was delayed because Teams’ servers were down. While speakers and participants waited for the issues to be resolved, many took to Twitter to take part in a social media campaign.
“Your voice is powerful, important, wanted and valid. Together our voice is louder than any other. Your. Voice. Has. Power,” Ohio U Better Bystanders tweeted.
The stream began just before 7 p.m. and was emceed by MarQuelle Phillips, who co-founded R2GU Traveling Ministry with her husband to help her cope with her own experience with date rape and physical and mental abuse.
The first speaker, René Redd, a community-based advocate and crisis intervention specialist for the Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program (SAOP), spoke about the resources SAOP offers.
“SAOP is a confidential, community-based agency, that provides a variety of services to survivors of sexual violence, domestic violence, human trafficking and stalking,” Redd said.
SAOP resources include a 24-hour crisis hotline, support for survivors during medical exams, assistance with protection orders and company for those who choose to report to police interviews. SAOP also connects survivors with mental health resources, childcare, employment assistance, relocation, housing and anything else a survivor might need.
The organization supports survivors in Athens, Hawking, Morgan, Perry, Jackson, Gallia, Meigs and Vinton Counties.
Journalist and activist Sarah Liese spoke about the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls movement. The movement works to protect the lives of Indigenous women from sexual violence, usually at the hands of non-Indigenous individuals, every day.
“The Missing Murdered Indigenous Women crisis has been called an epidemic and Indigenous communities around the nation are advocating for change and a safer future for their daughters,” Liese said.
5,712 cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls were reported in 2016, but only 116 were logged into the Department of Justice database, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute. There have been efforts to solve the crisis through legislation and advocacy, but it continues to be a major problem affecting Indigenous people.
“I hope today we can bring awareness to this issue that often gets overlooked or ignored,” Liese said. “Together we can imagine and push forward to a safer and brighter future for Indigenous women and all women around the world.”
Several survivors also spoke at the event Thursday night, including Ohio U seniors Cali Leasure and Olivia Gemarro as well as community member Michael Weiser.
“Today I stand before you and share my story in hopes that it brings peace to at least one person. To let them know that they are not alone, to say that it’s okay to speak up,” Leasure said. “I know it’s hard in the moment, but believe me, it’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am finally free of burden and worry. I am free of my own thoughts telling me I was in the wrong.”
Weiser shared Leasure’s sentiments that sharing his story has helped him cope with his abuse, but the effects of what happened to him will always be there.
“By talking about my trauma and my story, by telling the secret, my world has lightened considerably. Though I have begun to see the light at the end of my tunnel and a world that is not as black as it once was, I doubt that I will ever reach the life of unburdendness,” Weiser said. “This thing will never leave me. It will never be over, but I hold it differently now and it defines me less as time moves forward.”
Both Leasure and Weiser said they experienced sexual violence as children, while Gemarro was a freshman at Ohio U when she became a survivor.
Gemarro emphasized that women can also be perparators of sexual assault and violence, even though they are most often thought to be men. She said that while survivors cope in different ways, she’s personally channeled her energy into becoming a student activist.
“I am a young lesbian woman, and I am a survivor of sexual assault, and my rapist is a woman, so that narrative about dangerous men did nothing to protect me,” Gemarro said. “It’s no wonder that we rarely ever expect our assailants to be women. At no fault of our own we lose that edge of fear and heightened sense of awareness that keeps us safe, because we aren’t told to consider the fact that the women we are inviting in have ill intentions.”
Behind the speakers was the Women’s Center’s Fall 2020 exhibit “In This Space: Disrupted." The artwork represented different peoples’ experiences with sexual violence. Some of the banners read “In spite of what you took, I am still whole," “The space changes, the violence remains” and “True love breathed salvation into me.”
Others featured written accounts of rape or artistic renderings of experiences. One contributor attached her clothing to her banner and covered the ripped garments with floral embroidery. The full exhibit can be viewed on the Women’s Center’s website.
Phillips ended the night by thanking survivors for their courage to continue on despite their hardships.
“This is a very pivotal moment in your life. It is a very pivotal moment in history. Every survivor everywhere, we are being united today,” Phillips said. “Please remember that you matter, your circumstances matter. We thank you that you are a survivor and that you are refusing to give up, believing that you can take back the night.”
Survivors of sexual violence or people who know them can contact the following resources:
Survivor Advocacy Program (Ohio U students) — 740-597-SAFE (7233); survivor.advocacy@ohio.edu
Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program (Ohio U employees or community members) — 740-591-4266
My Sister’s Place — 1-800-443-3402
Counseling and Psychological Services (Ohio U students) — 740-593-1616
