What men can do to support

To the editor:

The Progressive Resource/Action Cooperative (PRC) is a multi-issue, multi-tactical activist organization committed to peace with social justice. Many PRC women are involved in planning Take Back the Night. As PRC men, we support the right and necessity of Take Back the Night to be women-organized and women-led.

Both men and women live in a social system of profound divisions - divisions based on race, class, gender, religion and sexual orientation to name a few. As organizers in anti-racist struggles on campus, we realize that racism has not only been institutionalized, but that we have also internalized racist attitudes. We also realize, however, that the only way to be anti-racist is to confront racism in all its forms. As men against sexism, we realize we are all sexist, and we benefit from that sexism. We are anti-sexist, though, because we are challenging power structures which maintain sexism and that only by challenging power can any aspect of the system be changed.

Male privilege is a distinct part of that sexism. The male student who maintained he was going to march despite the wishes of TBTN organizers is attempting to support women's struggles but is exerting his male privilege to do so. To participate in the struggle, men have to take leadership from those most affected by the system -women. We have to respect women's rights to autonomous struggle using the methods, strategies and tactics that women themselves decide.

There are wider implications to the controversy over whether or not men should march in the event. Those of us that benefit from privilege cannot always be involved in combating that privilege. Believing that we can or should be involved only reinforces our privilege. Sometimes there is the need to struggle together. Sometimes an oppressed group needs to struggle independently. The event organizers have decided that the Take Back the Night march is one of those times.

We see that men do not have to be involved in the TBTN march. We can organize an anti-sexual assault event any other day of the year. We should take the leadership of the event's organizers and respect their right to lead the event in whatever way they see fit. We challenge all men, especially those who say they are anti-sexist, to support TBTN as a women only march AND participate in other sexual assault awareness month activities.



Hank Emerle
senior in LAS

Brian Gryzlak
graduate student

Dr. Bruce Davidson
post-doctoral fellow, physics

Kurt Hilgendorf
junior in communications

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