When Alyssa Ensminger arrived for an interview at the Front Room Coffeehouse, she said she had been fasting that late August day in solidarity with hunger strikers in Chicago, protesting the closure of schools in predominantly black or ethnic neighborhoods.
Ensminger, a junior studying biological sciences in the Honors Tutorial College, doesn’t limit her activism there. She is heavily involved with F--kRapeCulture, a student activism group at Ohio University she said has helped to shape her college experience. She got involved last fall after her friends asked her to come with them to a meeting they were sure she would love. She went to that meeting, and she has only become more involved since that day.
“I think that F--kRapeCulture, both the politics of the organization and how we conduct ourselves, how we reach out to others, and the issues that we prioritize, are something that for personal reasons are very significant to my everyday life,” Ensminger said.
Ensminger said she has always been interested in learning more about issues and exploring them through a feminist lens, but it wasn’t until she got to college that she saw herself as not just an activist, but also as part of something more. Previously having worked with the OU Student Union in addition to F--kRapeCulture, Ensminger said she made some of her greatest friends through these activist groups.
“I think what’s really nice about the friendships that you cultivate through activism or social justice movements is that there’s a common understanding of interests that have deeper significance to your person,” she said. “Not just things you’re shallowly interested in … but something that’s deeply rooted in your values as an individual.”
Ensminger said activism and the activist community is open to anyone, even those who may feel intimidated.
“It’s very important to remember that activism isn’t a club you join,” Ensminger said. “The activism we talk about is something that relies on both the personal and political development of an individual that is willing to share those moments with others. I began working with FRC just a year ago, and I think my politics and my own values have changed drastically in that amount of time.”
It’s a valid worry for some people that the activist scene at OU is some kind of exclusive group, Ensminger said. She said some people feel like you have to enter into the community on the same level as everyone else. But that’s not the case, she said.
“Everybody has a starting point and nobody really has an ending point,” Ensminger said. “I think that’s important to remember. It’s OK to ask questions. It’s OK to put yourself out there.”
Ensminger said she’s “excited.” She’s excited about the conversations she’s been overhearing and the attitude she’s been sensing. She said she’s particularly happy that in the most recent Student Senate elections, tickets campaigned on the topic of sexual assault and rape culture.
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“Every single ticket had something addressing rape culture or sexual violence on their platform, which I really don’t think has ever happened before,” she said. “Whether or not certain tickets were more committed to it than others, it was still really exciting to see that senate tickets believed that students are interested in issues regarding rape culture and sexual violence enough that they want to represent them and also run their campaigns on them.”
It’s the smaller things, Ensminger said, that are sometimes the most satisfying.
“It’s becoming more normal to talk about these things than not to,” she said. “I think that’s really how we’re going to see campus culture continue to change. People are getting used to the ideas of, ‘What is healthy? What is not? What is consent? What is not?’ ”
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