Dear Dub: Why You Should Attend Take Back the Night

Last semester, the Dub heard from multiple sources that many men on campus did not attend Take Back the Night (TBTN) because they thought it was a women-only event. I am writing to you now to explicitly advertise that that is incorrect. If you, dear reader, take anything away from our humble little column this week, remember this: Men are indeed welcome at Take Back the Night. Tell your friends. Tell your roommate. Tell your mom. Tell your cat. Scream it from the rooftops!

TBTN at SLU aims to break the silence of sexual assault and give agency back to survivors. By attending TBTN, you are actively fighting against rape culture on our college campus. You may think, especially if you’re a man, that this problem doesn’t really affect you, that it’s “not really your business.” I’m here to tell you, yes, it is your business. If you care about the well-being of your fellow human beings, which I assume you do, the problem of sexual assault is very much your business.

According to RAINN, 1 out of 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime, and the risk of sexual assault increases three-fold for women on college campuses. 1 in 33 men will experience a completed or an attempted rape in their lifetime. College-aged men on college campuses are 78 percent more likely to experience sexual assault compared to men of the same age not in college. 21 percent of trans, genderqueer, or gender-nonconforming college students have been sexually assaulted. Clearly, this is a wide-reaching problem, of which everyone is at risk of encountering.

However, if you are a cis-gendered (meaning you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth) man on a college campus, you are indeed at much less of a risk of being sexually assaulted than cis women, trans women, and gender-nonconforming college students. 9 out of 10 survivors of sexual assault are women. It’s simply a fact. By assuming that this statistic exempts you from events and movements that work to end sexual assault, you are contributing to the problem.

Growing up in the society we live in, rape culture is instilled in us from a very young age; from problematic cartoons to playground games, there’s no way to escape it. By ignoring events like TBTN, because you don’t think it concerns you, you’re letting that rape culture live on. We can, however, work together to unlearn it. The first step in undoing the implicit misogyny instilled in us since birth is prioritizing events like TBTN that break the silence surrounding sexual assault. As Desmond Tutu so aptly said, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

So, without further delay, if you are a person on this campus, regardless of your gender, who cares about other people on this campus, I cordially invite you to Take Back the Night. I expect to see you there.

Take Back the Night is Monday, April 9 in Gunnison Chapel at 7 p.m., hosted by the Dub and Advocates.