A sign at TBTN asks what causes rape.
By Karen Nickel
Dialog contributor
Toronto’s ‘Take Back the Night’ (TBTN) rally and march took place in my neighbourhood of Parkdale on Saturday. This event, held for the past 32 years in a different location each year, is organized by the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre / Multicultural Women Against Rape (TRCC/ MWAR) who unfortunately are still very needed and necessary.
Take Back the Night began in the 70s, started by concerned and angry women as a way to reclaim the night, ‘occupy’ neighbourhood spaces, collectively resist fear and very loudly say NO! to sexual assault and violence against women.
I have gone to this event every year since attending my first one in Winnipeg during the late 80s. It is one of the main reasons I applied to George Brown College’s assaulted women and children’s counsellor/ advocate program. I wish it and my program never needed to exist.
After 32 years of Taking Back the Night, plus 40 years of TRCC/ MWAR’s work, I would have thought that we wouldn’t need to still be holding rallies and marches to stop sexual violence against our sisters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, daughters and ourselves. But we have been horribly disappointed by the continuation of this senseless and unspeakably painful assault on all of us.
It is the silence and silencing that TBTN directly challenges. Survivors of sexual violence not only have the physical, psychological, and emotional trauma of rape and sexual assault to combat but they also have the lateral violence of ignorant comments of people who might whisper, “What did she do, wear, or say to bring this on herself? Why was she out at night?” Instead of saying to people who rape, excuse rapists or tell rape jokes that, “It’s not her fault, it’s yours! For raping, excusing rape, or thinking rape is funny.”
That’s the purpose of the rally and the very vocal demand from the survivors of sexual violence who were in the streets.
A significant moment of the event was when the poets, Truth Is and Tomy Bewick, took the stage.
It wasn’t until the very end of their spoken word piece, “Cycles”, that I realized that I had been holding my breath the entire time. This piece spoke about how witnessing and experiencing violence in childhood can create an individual who sees violence as the ‘normal’ way to act and react towards others. What do we do to break this cycle of violence? At the end of this piece, I wanted to collapse with profound gratitude for the weight and meaning of their words.
Powerful testimony reflecting on the main purpose of TBTN as an event that gives support, solidarity and a voice to survivors of sexual violence, was given by “N.S”, a woman currently involved in the legal process of holding two men who sexually assaulted her throughout her childhood accountable. Because of this, N.S was anonymous, a Muslim woman veiled; she cannot share her identity or her story because of a publication ban. What she did provide was a passionate and angry call “to end the plague of sexual assault” to “speak out against sexual violence” and to support and empower survivors of sexual assault.
A crowd of 500 people then marched through Parkdale chanting, “Women Unite! Take Back the Night!”, repeated refrains of “We have the right to walk at night! Stop rape now!” and “Whose body? Our body!” as we blocked traffic, taking back King Street, then Jameson Avenue, then Queen Street, and back to the Masaryk Cowan Community Centre.
Women, transfolk and children danced, chanted and sang their way through Parkdale, reclaiming the streets as a community, resisting fear, and joyfully and loudly drawing the line and saying No! to sexual violence.
The Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/ Multicultural Women Against Rape will be having their fortieth anniversary party soon and I recommend you check out their website: www. trccmwar.ca for more information on this amazing centre and their upcoming events.
