This year's Sexual Assault Awareness week branched out from traditional themes to encompass a cross-cultural, cross-gender look at issues of sexual assault. In addition to the annual Take Back the Night and Women's Clothesline Project, events for the week included discussions of prostitution in Thailand, war and rape in Bosnia and a program discussing men's awareness.
Acting Coordinator of the Women's Resource Center, Abby Tassel, said that the WRC is "trying to give a more global emphasis" to Sexual Assault Awareness week.
According to Tassel, "what you do at home affects the world," and the issues Dartmouth students face are, to some extent, the issues people face everywhere.
Tassel explained that the goal of the week was "to recognize that sexual assault affects everyone." This all-encompassing approach attracted a variety of speakers, including Providence Journal reporter Karen Ziner. Zinner discussed the hardships faced by mothers in Thailand who are forced to sell their daughters into sex slavery.
An event which drew in a large and slightly unconventional group was Wednesday night's "Men as Allies" discussion, held in Dartmouth Hall. Featuring a panel of four men from West Chester College's Fraternity Violence Education Project, the program addressed the role men can play in stopping the violence.
Men's Project Coordinator of Women's Resource Center, Aaron A. Akamu said the event was arranged to "raise people's consciousness about issues of assault and violence in hopes [that] awareness will get people involved."
Akamu hopes that the interest generated by the discussion will lead to continued "talking and awareness" about the issues at hand. The program, which was planned since January, incidentally coincided with the emergence of news that Zeta Psi Fraternity regularly produced and circulated sexually explicit newsletters among its membership.
Akamu acknowledged that the news came at an "interesting time," right in the middle of Sexual Assault Awareness week.
"Personally," he said, "it was horrible [to hear about the papers] but in one sense, it will spark people's interest. Generally at Dartmouth, when something happens, people get excited for a bit. Hopefully, it'll raise awareness and open people's minds."
Akamu clarifies, however, that "lots of folks were supportive before the news broke on Wednesday." Both he and Tassel were pleased by the large numbers of students at Take Back the Night on Monday.
"There were so many people at Take Back the Night -- it was great to see men involved -- great to see Greeks involved," Akamu said.
Tassel cited the "awesome crowd" at the event to support her belief that she "doesn't think it was all reactive -- the concern is above and beyond the latest panic."
This year marks the 12th anniversary of the Take Back The Night program at the College.
A second staple of Sexual Assault Awareness Week is the Clothesline Project. This is a national project, inviting students to create t-shirts to go on display for the campus.
"The goals of this project are twofold," Tassel said. "It provides an opportunity for the people making the T-shirts to express themselves in an environment of healing and support. And other people can get a sense of what they might be feeling."
"One of the cool things about clothesline--they're all Dartmouth students who made those T-shirts," she added.
In future years, Tassel hopes to "branch out and incorporate other cultures, other countries" into Sexual Assault Awareness week. She also hopes to further men's involvement in the event."Something on people's minds, yet not spoken about this year was the idea of males as victims at Dartmouth. In the future, we need to figure out a way for men to talk about assault and get support."
