Women of Color Collective gathered to discuss sexual violence
It sometimes takes a cold, drizzly evening and a warm group of friends to share the perspectives on sexual violence that too often become oversimplified in campus-wide dialogues of sexual assault. Members of the ten year-old, recently reinvigorated, Women of Color Collective laughed with one another, challenged each other's ideas and at times held back tears as they discussed issues of sexual violence on Monday.
The "frat basement-centric" view of sexual assault often leaves out issues of race, class, gender and cultural identity that may affect an individual's experience with sexual violence, according to attendees, which included 20 women and one man.
The meeting began by a reading of the much-tweeted work, "Over It," written by Vagina Monologue author and V-Day founder Eve Ensler and posted November 11.
"I am over rape," read one member. "I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook... I am over women still being silent about rape, because they are made to believe it's their fault or they did something to make it happen."
One student pointed to the ability to "like" rape-related puns on Facebook pages and to websites like Failblog that recently took down this controversial image.
"Clearly people think it's funny," said one attendee. "What really gets me is when people have the balls to say, 'I'm so tired of girls saying it's rape when they wake up the next day and are just mad about it.'"
In defining how such violence affects survivors, the group agreed, sexual and domestic violence doesn't have barriers based on race, ethnicity or class - it impacts all communities. Yet statistics read aloud by a '13 raised questions among members about the unique experience of communities of color in regards to sexual assault.
Among those included the statistic that one third of Native American women will be sexually abused or violated in her life, and that African American females experience intimate partner violence at a rate of 35 percent higher than white females, and about 2.5 times the rate of women of other races.
Mainstream campus groups' ideas about sexuality and what it means to be a feminist may create a disconnect between the most vocal feminist groups and those with differing conceptions about feminism.
"I don't want to generalize, but I've heard a lot from some [student groups], and their idea of sexuality and my idea is completely different," one attendee said.
And as hard as it may be for some minority individuals to feel comfortable being the "only" minority in an all or mostly all-white setting like SAPA training, attendees said they could appreciate how difficult it might be when the roles were reversed.
Yet those in attendance said above all, they seek to be part of the solution.
"How do we as a collective of woman of color support women of color without forcing them to infiltrate these spaces alone?" one student asked. "How do we come up with a way in which we speak about this and support this, but do it in a way where we're kind of tailoring it to historical, religious and cultural backgrounds?"
One student described one of her goals at Dartmouth as "to expose my peers who don't necessarily look like me or think they can identify with me" to issues of identity and background.
"Let's make this feminist movement a more colorful movement," one attendee smiled, garnering smiles and applause from the group.