The annual Reclaim the Night Trivia Night Fundraiser is this Thursday, the 17th of September. It's being held at the Queensberry Hotel, at 593 Swanston St, Carlton, from 6:30pm onwards.
Entry is:
$5 concession
$7 full
$10 solidarity
We will also be selling tshirts and bags and accepting donations.
Everyone is welcome - come along, bring your friends, parents, children and colleagues - anyone you can. It's a great chance to spend time around other feminists and to support one of the biggest events on the feminist calendar!
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thanks! i'll be there
ReplyDeleteada :)
My response to flyer posted on Scarlet list:
ReplyDeleteI understand that this is controversial and may offend some members, but I feel I must comment on the exclusion of men from the march:
Sexual assault is a terrible thing for the victims, and for society at large; but its not only women who are raped and sexually assaulted as men suffer this also.
Perpetrators of sexual crimes are a minority group and all men are not rapists.
The argument that 'the presence of men in the march would be intimidating to women present' has dubious grounds when there will be males present as police, media and spectators.
To invite "anyone who identifies as a wom*n & children" and then to disallow men in the march is a slur on male victims of sexual assault, and it also fails to acknowledge the men who feel as strongly as women that sexual crime is an abhorrence.
A march to reclaim the night, with men, women and children marching together would send out a potent message that sexual assault is unacceptable, whereas anything that is sexually discriminatory may imply the opposite.
I sincerely hope that in years to come, men will be welcomed to participate as equals in this march, and only then will it have full societal legitimacy. Please receive this email as it is intended: as a constructive, supportive comment in protest against sexual assault of all forms.
Regards
Rich
"Rich,
ReplyDeleteWe absolutely understand the problems associated with excluding men from the march and obviously this is something that we discuss very seriously each year. While men are excluded from the march, they are absolutely welcome (indeed, encouraged) to attend both the rally and the post-march gathering.
The important distinction that we think makes this decision justifiable is the purpose of the march. While there is always a strong focus on sexual assault and rape at Reclaim the Night, the central purpose is in fact to combat violence against women specifically. There's a substantial focus on underlying issues of discrimination that are to blame for the substantial gap between the
number of women sexually assaulted and the number of men sexually assaulted. Because of that focus on discrimination, the decision is
often made that the women who are the central focus of the march may not feel comfortable marching alongside men - but more importantly,
that it's important to empower women to actively stand up autonomously against violence against women (whether the perpetrators are male or female!)
Our goal in having an autonomous march is not to ignore the problems faced by male victims of assault, but to highlight the sexual
discrimination that leads to violence against women. We absolutely agree that more needs to be done to support male victims of sexual
assault (in the same way that more needs to be done to support female victims) and also that men are not the sole perpetrators of violence against women (violence in same-sex relationships does, after all exist, much as we might wish it didn't) but Reclaim the Night does have a particular gender focus that we consider to be important. Meanwhile, we note that the majority of victims of sexual assault are female and the majority of the perpetrators are male (http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/C41F8B2864D42333CA256F070079CBD4/$File/45230_2004.pdf), highlighting the gender discrimination that underlies sexual assault.
We hope that you won't feel excluded from the rally, as we hope that all men see the need to support autonomous women's organising against violence against women and gender discrimination.
Regards,
The Reclaim the Night Melbourne Collective"
Thankyou for taking the trouble to reply to my posting, I did read the ABS link you provided but I'm not satisfied that the difference in ratio of female to male victims is nearly as great as the ABS figure would imply:
ReplyDeleteNext week Kok Foo Lim will be sentenced in WA for the rape of no less than 22 men. It seems that he is responsible for the rape of at least 80 other young men who refuse to testify. None of the raped men reported the crime to the police, who discovered the crimes by accident whilst investigating another matter. It barely raised a snigger in the local press, whereas if the victims were women or children then the press would no doubt have covered it around Australia and the world.
This is an example of the difference between “reported rape” and “actual rape”. But either way its irrelevant to the fact that it is not just women who are raped, and that rape is much more than a women’s problem, it’s a problem for the whole of society.
I must reiterate that I cannot support a march that discriminates against anyone on the grounds of their gender; I hope that in the future your group will recognize the suffering rape causes all and cease to represent the interest of one group of people over others. When that happens you will have my enthusiastic support, and I will be proud to march and help reclaim the night for all.
Regards
Rich
Rich,
ReplyDeleteObviously, we're all quite aware of the problems faced by male victims of rape and have no intention of ignoring these problems. The problem for us, however, is that there continues to be an ongoing gendered aspect to domestic violence and rape that even underreporting by male victims can't explain - in fact, rape is one of the most underreported crimes across all genders and the last time I checked, it was estimated that only about 40% of female victims reported the crime.
Reclaim the Night provides an important opportunity to remind the public of the discrimination against women that underlies so many of the problems of violence, sexual assault and abuse in our communities. That isn't intended to dismiss the problems faced by men, but to address a particular facet of the overall problem of violence and sexual assault in our communities.
The Reclaim the Night organisers are quite happy to support events that draw attention to the sexual assault and abuse of men, but this particular event deals with a particular gendered aspect which we think is best highlighted by an autonomous march. So long as sexism underlies so many of the problems of violence against women in our communities, we think that this is a reasonable decision to make, and we'd hope that you can respect that autonomous decision and attend the non-autonomous portions of the evening.
Cheers,
The Reclaim the Night Melbourne Collective
I support Rich here. As a non-woman, I am unwelcome to fully participate.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably worth considering that the majority of the population is hetrosexual.
I think this would have worked better as "anti sexual assault and violence" rather than "anti sexual assault and violence against women."
Great Post.....
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Thanks for sharing....