Taking Back Take Back the Night

By Erica Rose, 10-24-06

“I’m marching for violence. Excuse me, ma’am, are you marching for violence?” one of the “Country’s Most Wanted Men”(according to his fraternity T-shirt) asks with a snicker.

I am marching to promote respectful relationships, free of violence, during Take Back the Night, a part of the YWCA’s Week Without Violence. Normally, I wouldn’t be here. My political activity is usually reserved for events with good music or an open bar. But, I decided maybe the world was in need of a good old-fashioned issue awareness when a comment that sounded like it came from a caveman escaped the lips of a friend.

It happened when I was giddily telling friends over coffee about Fierce Perm coming to town to play at Voices Against Violence, the grand finale of Week Without Violence. My love of music was mistaken for some sort of political action statement. “Why do you waste your time being a feminist? I mean haven’t women already got everything they were fighting for?” one friend asked.

As calmly as possible, I mentioned that one in four women are sexually assaulted, when another friend jumped in, “Well that’s not like something you can really fight for. What are you going to do, hold a sign that says stop being rapist assholes?”

I asked myself, “Why am I friends with these people?”

But instead of yelling, I make them come to Take Back the Night and march around town in the cold rain. I figure being around people who care about women’s rights and fixing the problems women face today could be good for all of us. We haven’t reached the world Gloria Steinman, Simone de Beauvoir, and Betty Friedan imagined. Women still don’t receive as much pay as men, and are grossly underrepresented in the political arena. I know too many women for whom groping, grabs and catcalls are shrugged off as commonplace.

So we march from the University of Montana to the Missoula County Courthouse and then we march some more. We march with women and men; we march with young students and adults with their kids. We march past honking cars showing support, and smiling faces on the street; but I don’t feel better about my place as a woman in the world. I feel worse now than when I started. With half of the marchers gossiping about the debaucheries of Thursday night or making plans on their cell phone for the same thing tonight, I get the impression some people may be here to fill some sort of community service requirement. I am especially suspicious of the attendance of one fraternity president with whom I share a class. The day before, in class, he compared rape to a little guy getting beat up by a big guy. “I mean the little guy might be afraid of bigger guys for the rest of his life.”

Take Back the Night was created to give sexual assault and violence a voice, to provide a safe place to hear and be heard. A small part of that sense of community was lost with a few cell phones and ignorant jokes.

I’m not blaming anyone. I understand short attention spans, being cold and wanting to party on a Friday night. I’m not saying these people don’t care that every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. It just seems like there is a level of ignorance surrounding the situation, that, since the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, we can stop worrying about equality.

I end up leaving Take Back the Night early with a few girls who have similar sentiments about the march. “I’m taking back my own night,” one says. And to the Union Club we go. We drink tea and wine, watch girls play pool right alongside the boys, and dance the night away.

The next night, the party arrives. High Poets Society, Otherwise and Fierce Perm along with KBGA DJs take over the Red Light Green Room for Voices Against Violence. There is a sense of safety in the air, a feeling of respect and empowerment all around. But still a few aren’t-we-here-to-promote-equality thoughts sneak into the night.

“Isn’t that DJ that guy from the Rhino who said I had a ‘young, submissive vibe’ and tried to buy me a drink?” my friend Kit asks. It is. People do stupid things that keep women down, don’t even realize they are doing it and apparently still consider themselves progressives in a movement toward equality.

After the show, at an after party a guy turns to my friend Ashley, “You’ve got a fantastic ass and a nice face,” he says. Not a minute later the man pulls out his penis grabs Ashley’s arm and yells, “look!” Obviously he thought this act was OK. It’s not OK.
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