|
I volunteered at a group called "The Anti-Rape Task Force."
Rapes and sexual assaults were a well known epidemic on and near campus, and the university was ignoring and burying the problem, so the group of women on campus formed this group to deal with it. They were mostly self-identified Radical Lesbian Feminists.
I remember being warned by friends that I should be scared. Ooh, they were scary women. I was a thin, tiny, quiet guy who smiled a lot. They'll beat the hell out of me and I'll never be seen again. :P
We got along fine. :)
The task force had groups of three people stationed as teams at points through the campus with Photo IDs, and we would walk with anyone who didn't want to walk alone to anyplace they needed to go. Always as a team, and only volunteers who had been screened and had their IDs who prove who they were could participate.
We had two large van so, also always operated by a team, to dive anyone who had to get home to someplace off campus. Everyone knew that they could catch a ride for free in our vans, and we left campus ever half hour every night.
The women who screened me, trained me, and constantly talked about feminism in the office were the angriest, most passionate, most dedicated people I've ever volunteered with anywhere. They hated what was happening, and refused to sit still while we could do something to help someone out there.
Playing by the rules was not important, especially if the rules were part of the problem, and we had a lot of long conversations about patriarchy and "the rules out there."
What was important was understanding what was really happening, instead of the official truths and the happy myths. What was important was getting the necessary results, regardless of who's official toes we stepped on. It made in impact on me that is still with me today.
I still have some of the introductory books they gave me as gifts. Andrea Dworkin's Woman Hating was the first one I ever read. I gave away almost all my books when I couldn't hold and read physical books anymore. My eyes and hands don't work well enough anymore. But I kept these books as souvenirs.
I was a volunteer for years. I was put in charge of all the volunteers and had to make sure that we had teams for the safety escort service out there every night.
It turned out that I was a good public speaker too. I didn't get stage fright in front of a lecture hall of 500 people. I could talk for 15 minutes to the guys in that room asking if they cared about the women sitting there with them, if the knew the danger they were in from rape and sexual assault, and if they knew if might be from guy like them, or guys they knew, and that they needed to take some responsibility, because it was going to keep being a problem until guys stopped being the problem and stopped letting other guys be the problem.
My talks rambled on a lot like that paragraph, and I was always in tears by the end of us. But so were a bunch of other people in the room. People told me later that I become one of the "Big men on campus" because of that. Everyone knew who I was and though I must be really influential in student leadership or something. I didn't know that until years later though. Go figure.
We had 180 people volunteering by the time I left, and I think I recruited most of them. I thought too many of them were men, to be honest. I kept arguing that we should never have more than 1 guy on any team, ever. Women should always outnumber men 2:1 in what we were doing. But by the time I left things were changing. The same people weren't in change anymore. I wasn't allowed to arbitrarily reject guys just to keep the numbers lower. So the number of guys getting in gradually rose higher.
I have no idea how many creepy guys we successfully turned away because they couldn't get through the screening process. Thousands. You would be amazed how many creepy guys tried to join so they could meed women and find out where they lived. That, in and of itself, was a hell of an education in feminism.
So many of them came in expecting to be "white knights" who would rescue helpless women, and of course be adored and thanked for it. Probably scoring girlfriends for their time and effort. Occasionally we'd get a creepy guy who came in expecting to be able to "prove" to women that it was their own stupid fault for doing stupid things that were getting themselves raped, and women just needed a smart man around to show them what they were doing wrong.
When I got put in charge of volunteers I hated doing those screenings. But at the same time I always did them, and I always made sure I spent a long time on each one, and they were embarrassingly personal. I was proud that people hated me for those screenings. :P
Geez, I remember what a scandal it was the first time a guy was even Allowed to do a screening. I agreed that women should be doing all the screening! But if it was going to be my job, I'd do it, and I was going to be thorough and make it difficult. There was not way in hell I wanted to be the man who made the mistake and let a creepy guy in.
Anyway, that's my meandering memories and thoughts about the place where I first got exposed to feminism. :)
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
