Not too long ago, a group of activists at my university were organizing an annual event called “Take Back the Night“, which is an internationally held march and rally intended as a protest and direct action against rape,rape culture and other forms of sexual violence. As the organizers wrote, “Take Back the Night” will be an opportunity “to heal, resist, and speak out and is for those of you who are constantly silenced and harmed at this school… to reclaim voice in spaces that keep trying to suppress it, spaces keeping you unsafe”. I was following a Facebook feed that the organizers had started and was soon frustrated by how dark the comments turned. The context of the recent well-publicised attacks on women added fuel to the fire. What struck me as particularly frustrating were the responses by mostly men who were arguing, reasoning, shaming, shouting, pleading and blindly clawing their way out of any sense of shared responsibility for what was happening on campus.  → Read More