Domestic and Sexual Violence: Awareness

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Our Public Service Announcement
in collaboration with the Journalism Department...

The Run Against Rape...
to benefit the hospital in the Congo...

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Dealing with Violence:

We are grateful for all the work law enforcement and prosecutors do to get criminals off the streets...& The education of the public--about relational and sexual violence--is an important step, as many folks do not listen to radio, read papers, and talk of such things. There are indeed people who do not know about the Risks We Face each day. By WE i mean primarily women--young women, older women, very old women. Women who dress like nuns and women who dress like joggers and women who dress like me and women who dress like your mother and your sister and your daughter. Women who have had a beer, women who have had four beers, teetotalers, Women who have been Given a Drug to make them groggy and forgetful. (Women who are virgins, women who have children, women who are partnered or married or chaste or active, women who trust and are kind to strangers.) Also children-- very cute and precocious children, well-trained children, mean disobedient children, boy and girl children. Every day i am aware of the Loss of Freedom We endure because we do not want to be Assaulted by Men of our Own Species. We do not want to be kidnapped or held down for a minute or an hour or a day. We do not want diseases and cuts and bruises. We do not want another person to belittle and hurt and taunt us, and steal inner things that belong to no one else but us. We do not want anything rammed into our bodies anywhere. Read marge Piercy's Rape Poem, to try to understand, if you do not understand. So, my point. We do not film the sunrise and we do not paint the sunset. We do not watch the birds on the lake at dusk. We do not look at the radically purple and red petunias glowing at the end of light when the huge humming moths come. We do not sleep with the windows open, the fresh Flint Hills air bringing hay scent and a horse's whinny, crickets, lavender into our dreamy sleep. We do not hike alone. We do not swim alone. We do not wander the trails at Tuttle, writing poems and sketching the tall ripe grasses. We do not leave our apartments for a study break at 2 a.m., like the Other Students do, for a tasty pita sandwich in the 'ville. To lower our risk we have given a lot. Please can we all gather to find something new? And no matter how much we give up to Lower Our Risk We are assaulted anyway. Can we talk about this? (Someone always suggests that Perhaps males must Stay In after 8 and are not allowed to Walk Alone during the day in secluded places. This suggestion provokes a group chuckle, then silence as the actual daydreamy thought of living safe freedom in our own space and time--of living without fear-- shocks us in its absence. Mary