The University of Idaho Argonaut

Rachel Todd will be attending Take Back the Night for the second time as president of the Voices for Planned Parenthood organization at the University of Idaho, which is coordinating the event with the Women’s Center.

“We march through campus to symbolize and represent that women should feel safe walking around at night and that we shouldn’t need someone to walk us home,” Todd said.
An interdisciplinary major in women’s studies, Todd said she has always been interested in women’s rights and gender equity, key aspects of what the progressive feminist movement strives to attain.

Take Back the Night will start at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Clearwater Room of the Idaho Commons. Participants will watch a video about violence against women made by James French, who was president of the Feminist Led Activist Movement to Empower organization last year. The video will be followed by guest speaker Melissa Trivelhorn, an outreach coordinator for Alternatives to Violence on the Palouse, who will speak about sexual assault and consent.

“Idaho has a lot of problems with their laws against rape,” Todd said.
Idaho’s rape laws are skewed in that rape can only be established if the victim was forcibly restrained or can prove signs of a physical struggle. Todd said a husband can’t be convicted of raping his wife in Idaho.

“If you report a sexual assault your entire sexual history gets out and people start questioning, ‘You were wearing a short skirt so you were asking for it,’” she said. “Nobody asks to be assaulted. Ever.”

After the presentations, participants will leave the Commons and march around New Greek Row, Sixth Street, the Living Learning Community, the Wallace Complex and back to the Commons where the demonstration will end. The first third of the march will be conducted in silence, Todd said, “to represent all women who don’t report sexual assault.”

“The hardest part about coordinating the event is just getting the word out,” she said. “I think a lot of people, when they hear about it, they think about a lot of angry feminists running around. What we’re really going for is open communication between all groups of people ... toward equity and being able to live together comfortably.”

VOX asked FLAME to help them publicize the event. FLAME member Amber Denman said the organization had died down last semester and just recently started meeting again. Members will help VOX with promoting and setting up Take Back the Night. FLAME will have a table in the Commons Wednesday for Denim Day, an observational day regarding a rape crime that was dismissed in Italy because the female victim was wearing jeans at the time.

“It raises awareness about sexual assault and what people wear,” Denman said.
Todd said an important aspect of Take Back the Night is to get men to participate. A majority of rape cases involve a female victim and a male assailant, she said, and men can minimize the issue by showing their support for women’s rights.
“There weren’t a lot of men involved (last year). I think it affects men just as much as it affects women,” Todd said. “I think that sexual assault is something that should be fixed at the root.”

Denman said there is a skewed perception about feminism. Men can also be feminists, however, they are not placed into the same stereotypes as women. Even the Women’s Center is prone to these stereotypes, she said.
“There’s a lot of negative connotation being involved with the Women’s Center, let alone being a feminist,” Denman said. “As a work-study student, I became more aware of what the Women’s Center does.”

Also promoting and assisting with Take Back the Night are the women of the Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority Inc. LTA member Amy Hernandez is pursuing a triple major in justice studies, sociology and Spanish, while minoring in women’s studies. LTA’s goals involve empowerment of Latina women and “universal” women.

“We’re an academic-based sorority,” Hernandez said. “We took it upon ourselves as an academic philanthropy to have an aim toward women’s issues.”
LTA will have an information table in the Commons Thursday and hold a universal women’s banquet Friday. This is all part of the sorority’s Founder’s Week where each day involves an event Hernandez said will be “an educational format for the campus and the community.”

“I support what the women of VOX and FLAME are trying to make people aware of,” she said. “They need the support of the Greek community.”
Hernandez said she will pass information about Take Back the Night to houses involved in the Multicultural Greek Council.
“I hope to see some representation from not only Greeks but multicultural Greeks, as well,” she said. “Just because (LTA is) Latina doesn’t mean anything. It could happen to any of us.”

Women’s Center program coordinator Lysa Salsbury protested for women’s rights while attending London’s University of Leeds in the ‘80s.
“I was actually assaulted my first week, in my first year, in broad daylight,” Salsbury said. “There were numerous attacks on women.”

Both VOX and FLAME meet in the office of the Women’s Center in the Memorial Gym. It’s where they designed signs for the protest. Participants also have the option of carrying candles, said Heather Grasser, interim director for the Women’s Center.
“We do what we can to support them,” Grasser said. “This is directly involved in what we believe in — women being empowered.”