May 22, 2006
posted by Admin (Men Against Rape, Meetings, Our Press)
for Fall 2007 to Spring 2008
Join a student organization that is committed to ending sexual assault.
What would you do as a peer educator?
- Attend fun weekly meetings to discuss and plan events
- Get trained to lead and teach self-defense workshops
- Talk to sororities, fraternities, and residence halls on how to prevent sexual violence
- Facilitate discussion on the realities of street harassment in Isla Vista
- Plan and take part in our two annual campus-wide campaigns: I Want a Truce and It Affects Me
- Become an intern!
Students Stopping Rape is a co-ed student volunteer organization that presents educational programs to UCSB students and the surrounding communities on sexual violence.
Spring Training Dates are May 23 and May 30 at 5 pm in the Women’s Center
The Women’s Center is located in the new Student Resource Building.
For more information, contact Kari Mansager at Kari.mansager@sa.ucsb.edu.
May 17, 2006
posted by Admin (Men Against Rape, Meetings, Our Press)
Marsha Donat will serve as the Residence Hall Programmer. She’s a first year student majoring in sociology and has been a member of SSR since Fall Quarter.
Peggy Lee will be the Outreach to Student Groups of Color Intern. She’s a 3rd year biology student and held the same internship this past year.
Debbie Svidler will be the Media Outreach Intern again this coming year. She’s a 2nd year psychology and Spanish student.
Jessica Tang will be our new Arts/Design Intern. Jessica is a 1st year student majoring in business economics and got involved with SSR after the It Affects Me campaign.
Rachel Turner will be our new SSR Coordinator. She’s a sophomore psychology major and has been active in SSR since her second quarter of her 1st year.
Jack Schmidt will be our new MAR Coordinator.
May 09, 2006
posted by Admin (Our Press)
Amnesty International and Students Stopping Rape are taking part in the effort to ratify the Treaty for the Rights of Women by the United States, which would serve as a powerful tool in fighting violence and discrimination against women at home and abroad. Unlike many would think, ratification of this treaty is not a women’s rights issue; it is a human rights issue. While there have been significant gains to end discrimination against women in the United States, plenty more remains to be done.
The Treaty calls for equality in employment opportunities and remuneration, and encourages necessary social services, such as childcare, to help parents combine family and work obligations. The Treaty could also be used to combat violence against women, the feminization of poverty, sex slavery, and provide access to education. In nations that have ratified the Treaty, women and girls have used it to fight against domestic and sexual violence, and other forms of assault. It could strengthen our hand in defending our rights.
Currently, the United States is the only country in the Americas not to have ratified this basic treaty.
The United States should be consistent in its leadership as a global human rights defender and join the international community by ratifying the Treaty (officially the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW).
I urge concerned Americans to educate their legislators about the Treaty and take action by writing to their U.S. Senators asking for their support of the Rights of Women. You can also show you care by signing our “photo petition” at the Arbor from May 7th to the 17th. Don’t be afraid to recognize that women are human beings and deserve equal rights.
– written by Deborah Svidler, SSR Media Outreach Intern
For more information, contact Deborah Svidler at Debbie.svidler@sa.ucsb.edu
Apr 13, 2006
posted by Admin (Our Press, It Affects Me)
[ View original Daily Nexus article ]
Today is the last day students will be handing out those bright blue “It Affects Me” shirts, as the annual campaign against sexual violence draws to a close today after a weeklong run.
Campus groups Students Stopping Rape and Men Against Rape joined forces with the Women’s Center this year for the “It Affects Me” campaign, which is aimed at facilitating discussion about rape and sexual assault and educating students about their consequences. The student groups have already passed out almost 1,000 free T-shirts printed with the campaign’s slogan, and also hosted numerous events around campus for their cause - including a harassment seminar, a “Guess the Rapist” workshop and a pop culture and sexual assault trivia game.
The groups culminated the week’s events at a rally in Storke Plaza on Thursday, featuring a keynote address by women studies professor Grace Chang. Chang shared her personal story with the group of roughly 20 attendees about her experiences as a survivor of sexual assault.
As part of an effort to spread the word about the “It Affects Me” campaign, a few local officials - including Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum and UCSB Dean of Students Yonie Harris - helped organizers distribute T-shirts and attended some of the week’s events.
“This event caught my eye because when I was in college, rape was not talked about at all. It was a shame,” Blum, who was visiting campus Monday, said. “Now, not only do we talk about it, but we educate people on how to stop it.”
Organizers of the awareness week said the goal of the campaign was to show all members of the UCSB community that even if they have not dealt with rape personally, they are not untouched by the effects of sexual assault. Deborah Svidler, a media intern at the Women’s Center and a second-year psychology and Spanish major, described some of the ways in which everyone is affected.
“A lot of people feel it doesn’t affect them but it does,” Svidler said. “Anytime a girl is afraid to walk home alone, or a guy is judged as dangerous simply because he is a guy, or even when someone is bothered by music videos played on MTV, they are being affected.”
Fourth-year Global Studies major Romy Frazier, who was sporting an “It Affects Me” shirt on Thursday, said she thought the program has been growing more and more successful each time, especially in the last few years.
“I wore the T-shirt to bring more visibility to a very good campaign,” Frazier said. “This campaign has been more and more effective over the three years I’ve been here. They had some very good events lined up this year. Plus the shirts were pretty cute this year.”
Dean of Students Yonie Harris, who helped pass out T-shirts Wednesday, said that the ambiguity of the shirt’s message was part of its goal.
“The number one point is that the shirt is intentionally unclear and ambiguous. It’s a conversation starter. I had people coming up to me, asking what ‘It’ is, and that’s exactly what we wanted. The solution starts with conversation,” Harris said.
This is the fifth year the Students Stopping Rape and Men Against Rape groups teamed up to organize the campaign. Each year, the groups have had to order more shirts to give out than they had for the previous year, and this year seen the biggest demands yet - as 1,000 shirts were ordered. By Wednesday, all of the small and medium sized shirts had been given out.
In addition, Blum said a large percentage of the shirts were handed out to men - a fact she was particularly proud of.
Vice Chancellor Michael Young, who also helped pass out T-shirts this week, said he was happy to see so many students become involved in a cause - even if they were doing so just by wearing the “It Affects Me” T-shirts in support of the campaign. He said this year’s successful weeklong event is illustrative of an overall trend of increasing student activism at UCSB.
“I think it’s important that students are engaged in a variety of issues,” he said. “Whether that be getting students to resister to vote for the nationwide elections or raising awareness of sexual assault, all that activity contributes to a healthy and vibrant community.”
Apr 11, 2006
posted by Admin (Our Press, It Affects Me)
[ View original Daily Nexus article ]
Editor, Daily Nexus,
I just wanted to applaud the intelligent and positive-minded young women on campus today near Davidson Library who were getting the word out about sexual violence on our campus and beyond. These women dare to speak the name “rape” when many men prefer they stay silent. After all, we dress up or make a euphemism of rape when we call it “date rape.” Date or not, rape is rape.
The volunteer who approached me was quick to equip me with a blue T-shirt that read “IT AFFECTS ME,” and remind me that there is no way sexual violence cannot affect me, even as an American man, because rape is, in fact, the open secret of college life, military life and most especially Greek life. I have no doubt that the recipe for that college cocktail we call “frat life,” one half hazing and one half living-it-up, subtly perpetuates a culture of misogynistic violence and male self-hatred. Men and women suffer when men feel as if they can’t measure up because men too often take it out on women. And so long as America continues to promote the first rule of Fight Club - which is that we, in American society, DO NOT TALK about the fight clubs both within our borders and beyond them - it is easy to see how patriarchy, still alive and well in 2007, silences all kinds of anti-Man dissent through a very un-gentlemanly inability to say it out loud, to speak what must be spoken: that women’s bodies and minds matter.
These brave new volunteers were doing just that this afternoon on our campus, and I applaud them for saying it. By getting the message out about rape in a positive way, these volunteers are doing us all a
service and reminding us that more men should mind their manners. So thanks to them!
Colin Carman
Jan 29, 2006
posted by Admin (Our Press)
[ View original Daily Nexus article ]
Editor, Daily Nexus,
Every April for the last six years, Students Stopping Rape, Men Against Rape and several other organizations have jointly hosted a weeklong campaign against sexual violence. Through this campaign, members of these organizations hope to educate UCSB and surrounding communities on how to prevent, create awareness and facilitate discussion about sexual violence. The campaign encourages members of this community to recognize how sexual violence affects all of us. The campaign is called It Affects Me.
As the Nexus reported, at Wednesday’s Legislative Council meeting several students protested Associated Students and the recent Students’ Initiative fee increase. One student, Eva Kilamyan, carried a sign that read “Financial Rape: It Affects Me.”
Now I can understand why students like Kilamyan might be upset about the fee increase. What I do not understand is how Kilamyan can liken a fee increase to rape. I do not understand how anyone can liken something like a fee increase, a difficult test or a head cold to a violent and often life-changing crime like rape.
I am not a survivor of rape. I cannot and would never claim to know what it feels like to be a survivor of rape. I also cannot claim to know what it feels like to survive rape and then have to listen to, or see, others compare my experience to much more trivial events. I can imagine that this would be very painful.
On a college campus, it is estimated that one out of every four women are survivors of rape or attempted rape. This overwhelming number means that there are survivors all around us - in our classes, in our residence hall floors and at our A.S. meetings. Because of this fact, I am writing to encourage individuals who make statements like Kilamyan’s to think about what they are truly saying when they compare trivial experiences or events to acts of sexual violence. I am writing to encourage others to be more sensitive to the feelings of those around them. Finally, I am writing to encourage all of us to choose our words more carefully because we never fully know the experiences of those around us.
KATIE MAHON
