The average rape lasts two to four hours and every 21 hours a rape occurs on a college campus.
In response, ETSU will be participating in the seventh year of Take Back the Night, a program to promote zero tolerance of violence against women, on Monday, March 31, at 7 p.m. in the Martha Street Culp Auditorium.
The purpose of Take Back the Night is to promote zero tolerance by increasing community awareness, acting as a collective voice demanding change and empowering women and men to take action.
Furthermore, the program challenges women and men to take an active stance against this violence in their own lives and the lives they see others living.
Kim Bushore-Maki, counselor at ETSU’s Counseling Center, said that the program has a three-fold philosophy.
She said that the program not only seeks to raise awareness and empower those who have survived violence or rape, but is also a therapeutic device for women who have faced violence and rape to hear the stories of survivors.
Take Back the Night started in Europe in the ’70s when women at the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women walked together in protest, holding lighted candles.
These women were protesting the belief that no women could be safe unless she stayed locked in her home. This belief implied that the behavior of the rape and assaulted must change rather than the behavior of the rapist and the assailant. These women also protested the overlooked fact that most violence against women occurred in their own homes.
ETSU’s theme for 2003 is “Today’s Girls. Tomorrow’s Women. Our Right to Take Back the Night.”
The program will consist of poems, storytelling and songs of liberation.
Dr. Wayne Andrews, vice president of administration, will be presenting ETSU’s statement of support for zero tolerance on campus.
At the end of the program, participants in Take Back the Night will recite a pledge of promise to do their part in stopping violence against women, and will break glow sticks and congregate for a campus march to show their own dedication in the fight against violence.
Research suggests that half of all college women have been victims of some form of sexual abuse; more than one in four college-age women have been victims of rape or attempted rape.
Research also states that over 80 percent of people who are raped know their attacker.
Take Back the Night is a response to these acts, to change the belief that those who face these acts can survive and that change must start on a social level. There must be change in the behavior of the perpetrator.
Take Back the Night is free and open to the public and anyone seeking additional information may call 439-4841.
Students need to take note that the Inter Fraternity Council (IFC) and Pan-Hellenic Counsel passed a resolution that 50 percent of their membership must attend.
Take Back the Night hopes to empower those who are dealing with the event of rape or violence and send the message that such an event does not have to run or ruin the victims life.
As one survivor said: “First I was a victim, then I was a survivor, now I am a thriver.

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