Students had the chance to experience personal stories of people affected by sexual assault, in honor of Take Back the Night week.
NO! The Rape Documentary was screened yesterday evening in Ohio University’s Baker University Center Theater. Sponsored by the OU Survivor Advocacy Program, the documentary used first-person accounts of rape and sexual assault experiences to show the reality of crimes against women, particularly African-American women.
Lindsey Daniels, survivor advocacy program coordinator, said her group decided to present the documentary after she showed it to a class. SAP was able to sponsor the screening through a grant, and collaborated with the Association for Women in Communications, Student Senate, Shades and the Sexual Assault Prevention Club, among others.
“One of the powerful things about documentaries is to be able to hear the voices of people who have experienced this kind of violence,” Daniels said. “I think bringing in this documentary and this filmmaker will continue to serve as a catalyst for the Ohio University community to really address sexual assault on and off campus.”
Aishah Shahidah Simmons said she has traveled to Europe, South America and Africa with her documentary and emphasized that the program is important for women, as well as men, to see and understand.
“This directly impacts them,” Simmons said about male viewers of her documentary. “It’s really important that men see that it behooves them to get involved in this movement.”
Simmons said campus resources are an ideal place for students to get involved in sexual assault discussion and prevention.
“It’s really important to talk about what’s happened. You can’t suffer silently,” Simmons said.
Lauren Riley, the coordinator for the Sexual Assault Prevention Program of Tri-County Mental Health, attended the event. She said she came to learn more about the effect of sexual assault as it relates to an African-American female population, something with which she said she was not as familiar.
“I thought it would be a really good learning opportunity,” Riley said. “I thought it was awesome. It was about a really specific population, but I could relate to it.”
Riley said communication is an important part of getting the word out about rape and sexual violence.
“It’s something people don’t want to talk about,” Riley said. “The more familiar we become with it, the more we can talk about it.”
Daniels also said discussing the issue is an important step towards prevention.
“The documentary really can be used as a tool to organize ending violence against women,” Daniels said. “It’s more than raising awareness. …It’s really coming together as a united community to prevent this from ever happening in the first place.”
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