{"id":4453,"date":"2016-11-02T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T16:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=4453"},"modified":"2016-11-01T16:24:14","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T00:24:14","slug":"together-fight-take-back-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/together-fight-take-back-night\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTogether we fight to take back the night\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Shaylie Pickerel\r\nStaff Writer<\/pre>\n
Oct. 25 was the annual Take Back the Night event held by Abby\u2019s House on the bottom floor of the Werner University Center.<\/p>\n
This event is held on campus every October, during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Take Back the Night began with an informational piece about the origins of this event.<\/p>\n
\"take-back-night-1-colorabbys-house\"The first Take Back the Night rally started in 1975 in response to the murder of Philadelphia-based microbiologist Susan Alexander Speeth, who was stabbed to death while walking home alone.<\/p>\n
During the event, a gong is struck every nine seconds, representing how often women are beaten in the U.S. During this everyone is silent-showing respect and reflection for the event and victims lost to domestic violence and sexual assault. The power of the silence intensified after every gong ring.<\/p>\n
Western\u2019s President, Rex Fuller, was invited as a guest speaker. He expressed his feelings on the subject and shared some statistical facts surrounding campus safety and reported attacks. \u201cOnly 70 percent [of students] know where to go or what resources are available [after an attack],\u201d said President Fuller.<\/p>\n
Mary Ellen Dello Stritto, the coordinator for Abby\u2019s House, also spoke about her opinion on the matter and how domestic violence and sexual assault affects Western students. She shared details about Green Dot and the training information that Campus Public Safety receives. Dello Stritto also shared educational facts about on-campus resources, including the three sexual assault nurse examiners on campus.<\/p>\n
During the speaking portion, we also learned about the fears of the dark and human tendencies to blame victims. Following this, they had a portion called the speak out. The speak out is to give those who came to the event the chance to share their opinions or personal experiences.<\/p>\n
Domestic violence and sexual assault are things that impact people\u2019s lives and can be next to impossible to overcome. Take Back the Night participants marched through campus holding signs and candles to break the silence and to take back the night. \u201cWe are women, we are men. Together we fight to take back the night,\u201d chanted students.<\/p>\n
Aislinn Addington, the director of Abby\u2019s House, discussed some of the actions that Western students can take to break the silence surrounding domestic violence. \u201cThe most important step is bystander intervention,\u201d said Addington, \u201cthe incident [any form of domestic violence or sexual assault] doesn\u2019t just affect the immediate parties, but all of us. It\u2019s our job to talk about it and raise awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Take Back the Night occurs on campuses across the nations and serves as the, \u201challmark event of Abby\u2019s House.\u201d Addington recommends that all students should, \u201ctake the pledge to take action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contact the author at spickrell15@wou.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Shaylie Pickerel Staff Writer Oct. 25 was the annual Take Back the Night event held by Abby\u2019s House on the bottom floor of the Werner University Center. This event is held on campus every October, during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Take Back the Night began with an informational piece about the origins of this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":937,"featured_media":4488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/937"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}