TAKE BACK THE NIGHT 2004

The 2004 event, held on 14 April, incorporated speakers, self-defense demonstrations, and information on rape awareness from several campus and community organizations.  The keynote speaker was Dona Yarbrough, Director of the LGBT Center at Tufts University.  She spoke on the tension and connection between ideas of companionate marriage and sexual violence in American culture, especially as reflected through Mary Casal's The Stone Wall (1930).   She also spoke at the early evening program on the Library Green and met with graduate students in a separate session on April 15th. Dona’s visit to the campus is supported by the UWF Alumni Association.

Afternoon activities included a self-defense/escape seminar by Patrick Gonzalez of Project Fight Back, Gulf Breeze, FL, and a "clothesline project" coordinated by Amy Woodland.  The organizations also maintained information tables. 

The 2004 Take Back The Night program represents the fifth year of ongoing sexual assault awareness activities associated with Sexual Assault Awareness Month.  The events on the UWF campus are organized by students and faculty associated with the Anthropology Department, Green Earth Fellowship, UWF Women’s Studies, and the Gay/Straight Alliance, and enjoyed the additional participation of the Escambia/Santa Rosa Rape Crisis Center, the UWF Police Department's Crime Prevention officers, the UWF Counseling Center.

The evening program included presentations by Mary Lou Ruud (UWF Women's Studies Director), Robert Philen (Anthropology), Dona Yarbrough, Mary Ann Fabbro (Anthropology), and UWF Students Cristine Chapman, Kate Hale, Rance McKeithen, Nadine Niforos, and Marni Woodson. Written versions of the speakers' comments will be available here soon.  The presentations concluded with reading of Andrea Dworkin's "I Want a 24-hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape" followed by a candle-light memorial to victims of sexual assault.  

This year's director of the Take Back the Night Project, Cristine Chapman, is a graduating senior and the "Outstanding Anthropology Graduate" for 2004.  She is beginning a graduate program in cultural anthropology this summer with plans for work in Europe and North Africa.  Her academic interests include cross-cultural gender issues, women's rights in global context, and ethnographic methods and theories.