'There's no perfect survivor': Learn about the 46th annual Take Back the Night event
12:30 p.m.: This story has been updated with directions for the march.
Hundreds will be marching through the streets of Eugene Thursday evening for the 46th annual Take Back the Night event at the University of Oregon, with the goal to uplift the voices of survivors of sexual assault, abuse and violence.
Hosted by the UO Women's Center, the three-part event will include a rally, a two-and-a-half-mile march, and a Speak Out, intended to symbolize reclaiming safely walking public streets at night.
Take Back the Night is part of an international movement to uplift women who are survivors of sexual assault in college communities. However, the Women's Center has greatly expanded the local event since it first began in 1976.
"We have expanded it to include sexual domestic and interpersonal violence both in campus communities and within Eugene," said Fatima Roohi Pervaiz, director of the UO Women's Center. "It's for survivors of sexual domestic and interpersonal violence, and also those who want to support and bear witness and solidarity. It's for everyone, those who identify as survivors, and those who want to show up and show out and to let survivors know that they believe them.
"Our goal is to support survivors, educate the community and to prevent future harm."
After nearly half a century of this event, it's still going strong with between 200 to 500 attendees on average each year, according to organizers.
"Until the social climate shifts into one where we no longer need sexual and domestic violence prevention and awareness events, we will continue to do Take Back the Night," Roohi Pervaiz said. "We have a duty to continue these types of events, not only to educate, but to also support those who have endured that harm, they never deserved that."
Details about this year's event
This year's rally will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Erb Memorial Union Amphitheater at UO, featuring several speakers who will provide personal testimonies as well as statistics and resources. Some speakers will talk about education, such as the harm and legal implications of sharing someone else's explicit photos and the concept that coercion is not consent.
The march will then start at the EMU at 7 p.m., leaving the UO campus and walking through the streets of Eugene, eventually returning to the EMU where the Speak Out event will begin at 8 p.m.
Parade organizers obtained a permit through the City of Eugene and have planned a basic route:
Begins at EMU Amphitheater
Goes south down University St.
Turns right, along the north side of Pioneer Cemetery
Turns left, along the west side of Pioneer Cemetery
Turns right, continues on East 18th Ave.
Turns right, continues north on Alder St.
Turns right, continues east on 15th Ave.
Turns left, continues north on Kincaid St.
Turns left, continues west on 11th Ave.
Turns left, continues south on Mill St.
Turns left, continues east on 14th Ave.
Turns left, continues north on Kincaid St.
Turns right, continues east on 13th Ave., arriving back on UO campus
Motorists were warned to expect road closures to accommodate the march and to expect more congestion than usual in the area.
The Speak Out at the end of the night is led by trained Women's Center Student facilitators who will guide discussions as attendees step up to share their personal experiences. These students are trained in de-escalation and supporting upset attendees, helping others navigate trauma is what they do every day in the Women's Center. Attendees can share and listen. No UO-affiliated professional staff or media will be present for that event to protect speakers. Roohi Pervaiz herself will not be in attendance to protect the peer-to-peer space. Non-UO licensed mental health professionals will be available in a nearby room for additional assistance.
Roohi Pervaiz said the event will go on, rain or shine, and encouraged attendees to bring umbrellas or rain ponchos.
A lens of inclusivity
Roohi Pervaiz said the UO Women's Center is committed to centering voices that have been historically silenced, including those with disabilities, BIPOC communities and LGBTQIA2S+ groups.
Since she took over as director in 2015, Roohi Pervaiz has pushed for people of all genders to be included in Take Back the Night. There are multiple speakers who are part of the LGBTQIA2S+ community.
The Take Back the Night rally includes speakers of different racial backgrounds as well, including Indigenous speakers, Black speakers and Latinx speakers.
"We try to have as many communities as possible represented at the event," said Maggie Bertrand, UO Women’s Center Sexual Violence Prevention & Education coordinator. "Representation matters so, so much. And so it's so important for us at the Women's Center that we are really allowing and centering the voices of those that are marginalized."
"People that are coming to the event, they might be able to see someone that looks like them, that has the same experience."
Bertrand said there is a culture of silence that exists in many communities, where families and friends don't speak about certain topics, especially sexual and domestic violence. She said marginalized communities are particularly affected.
This year, in addition to other accommodations such as ASL interpreters and pedicabs and wheelchair-accessible vans to allow those with mobility aids to join the march, the Speak Out will take place inside the EMU Diamond Lake Room for the first time.
Roohi Pervaiz said this was after seeing some mobility aid users unable to get onto the grass behind the Knight Library, which is where the Speak Out was held last year.
"When I recognized last year that it was not accessible, so we swiftly made that change," Roohi Pervaiz said. "Everything will be wheelchair accessible."
The duality of healing
The theme for this year's Take Back the Night event is "DUALITY," centering around the varied experiences of survivors and their healing process.
Bertrand said there is no one-size-fits-all solution to healing after trauma.
"There's no perfect survivor," Bertrand said. "There's no perfect feelings to have or not have when you're going through your healing process, or processing the trauma that you've experienced. It touches on the fact that we have the right to feel our rightful rage, but also our radical joy, and we can experience all of these feelings and our feelings are allowed to be messy and complicated and confusing. That is completely okay."
Roohi Pervaiz said it is essential to allow survivors the space to share their own needs and experiences. At the Women's Center, she said they trust that many survivors already know what is best for them.
"We will offer resources, all of the different resources that are available both on and off campus, but we will follow their lead," Roohi Pervaiz said. "That kind of agency and autonomy is frequently not offered to survivors in a society where survivors are frequently not believed, and also often blamed for the harm that they have endured.
"Power, control, violence, harm, it's all about taking your bodily autonomy, taking your agency, taking what is your what is rightfully yours, and Take Back the Night is all about reclaiming your power, reclaiming what has been taken from you. They no longer get to have that anymore."
The UO Women's Center houses two student organizations: UO Students for Choice and UO Womxn of Color Coalition. The center has an inclusive lactation room, and a low-stimuli decompression room. The center also has safe sex and menstrual supplies and a computer lab with five pages of free printing available to all students. It hosts a coffee hour every Monday for students to learn about SNAP benefits, a BIPOC international study hour every Tuesday, a disability justice social support group every Friday and an LGBTQIA2s+ walk-move social support group. The Women's Center is also the home of the feminist magazine named the Siren.
"We have so many wonderful things in the Women's Center," Roohi Pervaiz said. "It's a community and a safe place for folks to share in their radical joy and their rightful rage."
More resources for survivors:
UO Women’s Center, 541-346-4095, dos.uoregon.edu/women
UO's 24/7 confidential support line, 541-346-SAFE (7233), safe.uoregon.edu
UO Care and Advocacy Program (CAP), 541-346-3216, dos.uoregon.edu/help
UO Student Survivor Legal Services' Domestic Violence Clinic, ssls.uoregon.edu/community-resources
CAHOOTS mobile crisis intervention, Eugene: 541-682-5111 or Springfield: 541-726-3714
National sexual assault helpline, 1-800-656-4673
National domestic violence hotline, 800-799-7233
Miranda Cyr reports on education for The Register-Guard. You can contact her at mcyr@registerguard.com or find her on Twitter @mirandabcyr.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Take Back the Night in Eugene: March through town, speakers, traffic
