As my first time attending Take Back the Night, the event was particularly special and inspirational. The event took a lot of planning, but when it all came together on Friday; it was a truly beautiful night. As many attendees know arm bands are given out when the marches converge in Dewitt Park. Blue arm bands mean supporter, purple means survivor and orange identifies advocates. For me, this was the most powerful part of TBTN. For many individuals wearing the purple arm band might have been the first time they were identifying as a survivor, which for many was a very empowering and important experience. For supporters, the same was true. Some even choose to wear both blue and purple to identify as a survivor and supporter. We had so many individuals choose to identify as supporters that we ran out of blue arm bands! Being able to see the number of individuals who identified as survivors and supporters illustrated the great support system of TBTN, really getting down to the root of our event’s theme of Justice and Advocacy. Seeing how many survivors and supporters that attended really opened up and broke down the barriers of stereotypes of what a “survivor” or a “supporter” looks like. We all know that sexual assault can happen to anyone, but unfortunately our society still holds giant stereotypes which put individuals into boxes. Even further on the topic of breaking stereotypes, was the diversity of our event. Traditionally, society identifies sexual violence with female survivors, but during this event all these walls were broken down and the truth of sexual violence was exposed—truly anyone of any sex, ethnicity, nationality, age, sexual orientation, etc. can be a survivor of sexual violence.
Speak outs included speeches from males, LGBTQ individuals, women and men from different backgrounds and ethnicities. Our speakers included representatives from the Avon Global Center at Cornell, representing different countries around the world, as well as a male representative from the faith community. I was genuinely impressed by the diversity of this year’s event and I hope that it continues long into the future. What was your favorite experience from this year’s event? Comments are closed.
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