“People unite. Take back the night. What do we want? Safe streets! When do we want them? Now,” Eugene residents yell throughout the streets. Held every year on the last Thursday in April, Take Back the Night — an event to “rally, march And speak out against sexual and domestic violence” — allows people to come together to support survivors of sexual violence, educate the community and prevent future harm.
“It requires being trauma-informed, seeing through a student- and survivor-centered intersectional feminist lens and using an anti-oppression approach,” Fatima Roohi Pervaiz, director of the UO Women’s Center, said regarding how she operates the Women’s Center and the Take Back the Night event. “It’s extensive, multi-faceted and intense.”
Pervaiz said that the audience at the event will be filled with those who have experienced harm as well as those who have but can’t put it into words.
“Hearing from their peers what they experienced, or [what] marginalized communities experienced, they can say ‘I’m a survivor’ and begin their healing journey,” Pervaiz said.
The event will begin at 6 p.m. on April 25 with a rally in the EMU amphitheater, where a variety of speakers will talk about communities who are marginalized and often silenced. After the rally, speakers and audience members will take to the streets with signs and chants to protest the continuation of sexual violence.
This yearly international protest was founded in 1976 to raise awareness about the sexual assault realities on campus and in the community. The event was intended both for survivors of violence and those who want to support and bear witness in solidarity.
Sexual violence prevention coordinator Maggie Bertrand works alongside Pervaiz to organize and put together Take Back the Night. Bertrand said working at the Women’s Center with Pervaiz has been an extremely transformative experience.
“As a person of color who is also disabled and has suffered my own forms of abuse, this event is the most radical vulnerable space that we hold because many of us live in a world with a culture of silence,” Bertrand said. “Families especially hold those practices, and so oftentimes we don’t have the ability to speak to those experiences or know what words to put to those experiences because we haven’t practiced it or ever knew it was okay.”
The upcoming rally will offer members of the community a platform to share stories that have long been overdue for acknowledgment. In the collegiate setting, there’s immense value in coming together through shared experiences and standing in solidarity with victims to wholeheartedly support their narratives. This event presents a distinctive yet potent opportunity to foster such unity.
Stay updated on the Women’s Center’s Instagram (@uo_womenscenter) for event details, and keep an eye out for posters around downtown Eugene.
