Campus Diary
Fighting for Women's Self Defense
 On October 30, 542 people joined Wesleyan's annual Take Back the Night March to share their stories of sexual assault or to support survivors. The night was filled with moments of both empowerment and despair. Cheers like "Wesleyan Unite! Take Back the Night" were heard, while in the speak-outs women (and a few men) described scenes of rape and other attacks of sexual violence. Many people left the march feeling confused or afraid; but one thing was clear-for many Wesleyan women, like for thousands of other women in the outside world, physical and mental abuse is a part of their lives they are constantly forced to face. Although Take Back the Night heightened sexual assault awareness, it still left the question of how women are supposed to combat this injustice unanswered.
In the past Wesleyan has partially answered this question by offering a self-defense class. However, this year the class never materialized because of organizational problems. Since the class is not offered for credit, a fee must be charged and a teacher independent of Wesleyan must instruct it. Irene Wilson, the woman who has taught the course in the past, agreed to teach it this year but couldn't locate students to help organize the class for next semester. However, members of Wesleyan could help organize the course. And thus women's self-defense disappeared for the fall '98 semester.
Plans are now underway to rehabilitate the class for next semester. However, members of Wesleyan's Feminist Majority have decided that the class deserves a more permanent place on our campus; and the only way to get that is to include it in the course book. Normally, establishing a credited class is a lengthy process, unless Physical Education approves it for their department. Unfortunately Physical Education is reluctant to sponsor the class because of budget limitations. Since that route had led to a dead end, the next step was to appeal to President Bennet for support. Previous presidents have supplemented the course with their discretionary funds. Yet when questioned, Bennet was unwilling to temporarily reduce the costs of the class because he didn't see a future for it in the course book.
Bennet believes that instituting a credited women's self-defense class would make it appear as though Wesleyan students were in danger of being sexually assaulted on campus. Even if we could pretend that Wesleyan was a perfectly safe campus, free of sexual assault, we could not ignore that in this world a woman is raped every four minutes. Bennet claims that Wesleyan's role is only to educate its students in academic areas (with the exception of a limited number of physical education courses). And so once again the womens's self-defense course has reached an impasse.
Although the class lacks the support of both Physical Education and our president, it will be offered next semester (for a fee). If you are interested in helping start the course or enrolling in it, then please try to attend the next Feminist Majority meeting on Monday night, at 10 p.m., in the campus center meeting rooms. Or you can contact Negar at X6232.
-Karen Weingarten |