tbtntrauma2550

[tbtntrauma2550]

Works Cited

Aamot, Samantha. “Take Back the Night.” ArcGis StoryMaps, 6 April, 2020. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/78ceff6c22dd445a96c57ca64b3708f0 Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (US). “Understanding the Impact of Trauma.” Trauma Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Jan. 1970, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/.

Davidson, Tonya Katherine. Feminist Zines: Cutting and Pasting a New Wave. Canada, University of Victoria, 2005. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/bitstream/handle/1828/795/davidson_2005.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

Evans, Kathy M., et al. “Feminism and Feminist Therapy: Lessons From the Past and Hopes for the Future.” Journal of Counseling & Development, vol. 83, no. 3, 2005, pp. 269–277., doi:10.1002/j.1556-6678.2005.tb00342.x.  

Friedman, Carly, et al. “Sexual-Minority College Women’s Experiences with Discrimination: Relations with Identity and Collective Action.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 2, 2010, 152–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2010.01558.x

Gill, Gulvinder and Rahman-Jones, Imran. “Me Too founder Tarana Burke: Movement is not over.” BBC News, 9 July, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-53269751

Hagen, Whitney B., et al. “A Grounded Theory of Sexual Minority Women and Transgender Individuals’ Social Justice Activism.” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 65, no. 7, 2018, 833-859, DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2017.1364562

Gomes, Rosana Ruas Machado. “Trauma and Healing in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Home.” (2019). https://www.lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/205550/001111402.pdf?sequence=1.

Grossman, Frances K., et al. “A gale force wind: Meaning making by male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, vol. 76, no. 4, 2006, 434–443. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1037/0002-9432.76.4.434

Hagen, Whitney B., et al. “A Grounded Theory of Sexual Minority Women and Transgender Individuals’ Social Justice Activism.” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 65, no. 7, 2018, 833-859, DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2017.1364562

Haglili, Ronna M. “The Intersectionality of Trauma and Activism: Narratives Constructed From a Qualitative Study.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 60 no. 4, 2020, 514–524. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167820911769

Harvey, M. R., & Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma of Sexual Victimization: Feminist Contributions to Theory, Research, and Practice. Trauma of Sexual Victimization: Feminist Contributions to Theory, Research, and Practice, 3(3), 1-8. https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=13537.

Herman, Judith. Trauma and recovery. Basic Books, 1992.

“History.” Take Back the Night Foundation. n.d. https://takebackthenight.org/history/

Kretschmer, Kelsy and Barber, Kristen. “Men at the March: Feminist Movement Boundaries and Men's Participation in Take Back the Night and Slutwalk.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly, vol. 21, 2016, 283-300. 10.17813/1086-671X-20-3-283.

Leavy, Richard and Adams, Eve M. “Feminism as a Correlate of Self-Esteem, Self-Acceptance, and Social Support Among Lesbians.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 10 no. 4, 1986, 321–326. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1986.tb00757.x

Mambrol, Nasrullah. “Trauma Studies.” Literary Theory and Criticism, 15 July 2020,   literariness.org/2018/12/19/trauma-studies/.

Midlarsky, Elizabeth. “Helping as coping. In M. S. Clark (Ed.).” Review of personality and social psychology, vol. 12, 1991, p. 238–264 

Mohamed, Tameera. Sexual Violence and Trauma: Exploring Contemporary Feminist Approaches. Dalhousie University, August 2018. https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10222/74104/Mohamed-Tameera-MA-SOSA-August-2018.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye: A Novel. [1st ed.] New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. Print.

Philips, Kate. “Women to protest rape with march.” The Lantern [Columbus], 27 April 1978, p.3. The Ohio State University: University Libraries.

Rich, Adrienne. Diving into the Wreck: Poems, 1971-1972. 1st ed. New York: Norton, 1973. Print.

Strauss Swanson, Charolette & Szymanski, Dawn M. “From pain to power: An exploration of activism, the #Metoo movement, and healing from sexual assault trauma.” Journal of Counseling Psychology, vol. 67, no. 6, 2020, 653–668. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1037/cou0000429

Take Back the Night. History, n.d. Take Back the Night Foundation. https://takebackthenight.org/history/

The Lantern. The Ohio State University Publication Archives. The Ohio State University. https://osupublicationarchives.osu.edu/ Accessed 22 April, 2021

Vollhardt, Johanna R., & Staub, Erwin. “Inclusive altruism born of suffering: The relationship between adversity and prosocial attitudes and behavior toward disadvantaged outgroups.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, vol. 81, no. 3, 2011, 307-315. http://dx.doi.org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1111/j.1939-0025.2011.01099.x

Vox. “The US Medical System Is Still Haunted by Slavery.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 Dec. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfYRzxeMdGs&t=55s.

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Trauma Theory: A Feminist Tool

By Emmy Wagner

In the field of feminist studies, scholars analyze the ways systems of power, such as white supremacy and heteropatriarchy, work together to form unique experiences of oppression. Because these systems of power have such influence on the lives of marginalized communities like people of color, the LGBTQ community, and immigrants, they live with constant stress due to the discrimination they face for their identities. Sometimes this discrimination can be small scale. For example, a white woman commenting on the texture of a black woman's hair, however, discrimination can be far more dangerous than that. The prejudice against black people that is held by many police officers has led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent men and women. These violent tragedies have created serious trauma which affects the entire black community scared and angry. The trauma of being targeted by authority figures is so severe that words cannot adequately describe the feeling. This is where trauma theory comes into play. Trauma studies explore the impact of life-altering experiences and can be a handy tool in the feminist scholar's toolbox.

To understand how trauma studies can be useful to the feminist scholar, it is important to have a clear understanding of the foundations. Trauma is defined as "a severely disruptive experience that profoundly impacts the self's emotional organization and perception of the external world" (Mambrol). Trauma can be on an individual basis, or large enough to affect an entire community, as with the case of regular police brutality throughout America. Trauma studies analyze the psychological, rhetorical, and cultural significance of the specific example of trauma as well as how it changes the individuals' comprehension of the world around them. This area of scholarly analysis developed in the 1990s and drew upon neurologist Sigmund Freud's theory of traumatic experiences on the human person. In his early work, Freud hypothesized that "traumatic hysteria" stems from an earlier, repressed, experience of sexual assault (Mambrol). Freud emphasizes the event itself was not traumatic, but it is the remembrance of or reflection upon the experience that is traumatic. This latency period "delays the effects and meaning of the past," but once a present event brings forth the memory of the traumatic event, the painful process of remembering, also known as "pathogenic reminiscence," ascribes value to said event (Mambrol). This can cause trauma-induced symptoms such as "exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation… and blunted affect" (Center). The relational process of remembering trauma can cause a splitting of the ego or dissociation, thus creating an abnormal state of consciousness. In his later work, Freud states that the "extensive breach being made in the protective shield against stimuli" is the cause of this traumatic neurosis. (Mambrol). Freud viewed the brain as an organism with many layers, one with an outer "protective shield," but when an individual unexpectantly goes into "fight" mode of "fight or flight," there is no anxiety to act as a defense mechanism. This lack of internal defense is what leaves the brain vulnerable to attack. Thus, trauma is both "an external agent that shocks the unprepared system and an internal action of defense" (Mambrol). One marker of traumatic neurosis is the "'compulsion to repeat' the memory" as a way to overcome and master the unpleasant feelings it evokes (Mambrol). Because our brain often reproduces memories in a way that is slightly off from the actual experience, Freud believes that the narrative of the event is crucial to recovery. As such, abreaction or talking about the event, is critical to allow the individual to gain a better understanding of the past (Mambrol).

Now that the foundations of trauma theory have been laid out, one can direct her attention to what is known as "the First Wave" of trauma studies. The first wave of trauma studies flourished in the 1990s with prominent scholars such as Cathy Caruth and Geoffrey Hartman at the forefront of the research. It popularized the notion that trauma is an "unrepresentable event" that reveals the inherent contradictions between language and experience (Mambrol). Because trauma is viewed as an event that splits the ego, it prevents easy articulation. This fragmentation or dissociation is seen as the direct cause of trauma, which supports the concept of transhistorical trauma; that is to say that the universality of trauma, past, present, and future, allows for the opportunity to connect individual and collective traumatic experiences (Mambrol). In the first wave, trauma studies analysts formed a model of trauma that says trauma creates a negative, persistent pathological effect on the consciousness and memory in a way that prevents it from being incorporated properly into one's life story. As a result of this model, trauma theorists emphasize the external stimuli as an event of suffering that brings about dysfunctional internal processes (Mambrol). Because the trauma creates a fractured ego, the experience is not able to be logically vocalized. Thus, a strange dichotomy of silence and chaos is created.

As a result, professor of English and Comparative Literature at Yale University, Cathy Caruth argues that experiences of trauma are never truly known directly, but instead are pieced together from the narratives of those willing to discuss the event. Furthermore, because trauma neurosis is defined by the delayed remembrance of a repressed traumatic event, Caruth says that trauma is not easily locatable, but is identified "in the way it is precisely not known in the first instance—returns to haunt the survivor later on" (Mambrol). Because traumatic events enter the psyche in a different way than a normal experience, an abnormal memory is formed, meaning this remembrance is only a particular recall and not definite knowledge. On a greater scale, Caruth writes "history, like trauma, is never simply one's own, that history is precisely the way we were implicated in each other's traumas" (Mambrol). This implies a shared responsibility across time and illustrates how trauma can be transhistorical and intergenerational. The experience of collective trauma is not easy to escape. It sends ripples out across the generations of families, marking an important event in that group's history. As a result, certain beliefs and responses are inherited by descendants which exposes them to knowledge that fosters a unique mindset in which the individual and collective view the world around them. The inherent irrepresentability of trauma highlights how history is not always a 100% accurate source.

Like most schools of thought, trauma theory continued to develop, and the second wave of trauma studies challenged the typical model of its predecessor. The Pluralistic model as it came to be known, challenges the notion that trauma is entirely unspeakable by analyzing the cultural dimensions of trauma and the diversity in narrative expression. It suggests that traumatic experience exposes new knowledge of the "relationships between experience, language, and knowledge that detail the social significance of trauma" (Mambrol). This model emphasizes how the reorientation of consciousness due to traumatic events creates diverse memories and meaning for different people. Furthermore, the pluralistic model focuses on the discernable values of trauma and challenges the importance of the demand for a complete dissociation and an altered point of reference regarding trauma (Mambrol). By relying upon the external stimuli that caused the trauma response, one can demonstrate how it occurs in specific people, periods, and geographical locations which influence the meaning of the event to the individual and the collective. This implies that the traumatic event in question is created and recreated anytime it is reflected upon, even by the same individual. The unique experiences of each human, their identities, and their view of the world shape how they think and behave. Therefore, what the survivors of trauma articulate, and what they do not articulate, can partly be attributed to their cultural context instead of the claim that trauma is inherently unspeakable (Mambrol). Because the pluralistic model challenges the unspeakability trope of trauma, it highlights how language can illustrate various meanings of traumatic experience and how shifting values over time inform the diverse understandings of said event.

The pluralistic model of trauma provides feminist scholars a great framework to analyze systems of power that create an environment where large-scale instances of injustice are interwoven in the fabric of our history. For example, the United States of America was built off the backs of black slaves. The white European settlers that enslaved, tortured, and many times killed their slaves did so on the grounds of supremacy. White supremacists believe that they are the ideal species of man and those who are not like them (white, male, cisgender, able-bodied, and educated) have less inherent human value. Up until the 1940s, science even "supported" this assumption that black people are less intelligent humans with scientists like Frances Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, who popularized eugenics in the United States and England. His eugenic practices aimed to create a "more suitable race" that was not plagued with human "defects." This goal was not achieved through genuine efforts to protect human life, such as regular water testing and treatment for example, but rather through the erasure of the people who embodied the characteristics heteropatriarchy and white supremacy saw as less than.

One way the endeavor to erase the presence of marginalized groups was carried out was through the unethical medical experiments that were conducted on black slaves. Black men and women were used as lab rats to test various hypotheses of curious white doctors and scientists. Women were under-went forced sterilization, oftentimes with little to no pain killers or anesthesia. This history of the forced sterilization of black women continued until the 1970's well into the evolution of medical practice and ethics. However, white supremacy is so deeply ingrained in our culture that doctors actually agreed that sterilizations should be conducted.

Despite all the efforts and lives that went into creating a more just world, prejudice within the U.S. medical system is still prevalent in 2021. Black and other women of color report negative experiences with doctors who dismiss their health concerns and, consequently, experience far greater infant and maternal mortality rates than white women. Out of every 1,000 black infants born, 11.3 will die, compared to only 4.9 white infants. For every 100,000 live births, 12.7 white women will not survive. In contrast, a grand some of 43.5 black women die after childbirth (Vox).  This early history of physical, mental, and emotional trauma, combined with modern-day prejudice and bias against the black community, within the medical field has prevented black men and women alike from receiving the medical attention they need. The history of trauma for the black community by the hands of white perpetrators has created a viewpoint that recognizes the ways the United States has institutionalized racism and continues to act with flagrant disregard for black lives.

Trauma theory is a valuable asset to the feminist scholar in that it helps create a foundation for knowledge production. The irrepresentability of trauma is complex in that both hinders and improves our understanding of how trauma affects the minds of victims. Because it is so devastatingly disruptive, people have difficulty finding the right words to describe their thoughts and emotions.

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Take Back the Night at Ohio State University as seen through The Lantern articles through the decades (1970s-2000s)

Compiled by Katie Kuhlwein

Picture descriptions in order:

1. The first time TBTN was used in OSU’s school newspaper. Notice how only women are permitted at the march, the leader of the Black Women’s Leadership Caucus is the first noted speaker, and childcare services are provided to participants of the march (The Lantern, 1978, April 27)

2. Reference to TBTN calling for the awareness that sexual harassment and violence is not just toward women and should acknowledge the level that gay men face too (The Lantern, 1980, October 22)

3. A report on a protest, notice how only women permitted here as well (The Lantern, 1983 May 16)

4. Interesting tactic to raise awareness of preventing sexual assault. (The Lantern, 1996, May 29)

5. Complaints from men about not allowing men in protests (The Lantern, 1996 May 29)

6. A response to the previous column of the men complaining, calling the men out (The Lantern, 1996 May 31st)

7. Another TBTN protest that is women only. (For some the article’s second part is not accessible in a format that would be easily shared here, but it continues by saying that there is a separate event for men to share their stories (The Lantern, 2008 May 15).

Many of the TBTN events held at OSU were asserted as women only events. What are the implications of this? Reinforced gender binary, possibly invalidating men’s survivor experiences as secondary by having it as not the main event, for of a side event. Also potential exclusion of trans or gender non conforming/ non binary people.

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Engaging with Trauma Individually and Through Art from the 1960’s - Early 2000’s

By Bianca Barton

Consciousness-raising Groups

In the 1960’s, conceptions of feminist-informed trauma recovery was built on the idea that personal is political (Evans 269). TBTN not only exposed sexual violence to the public realm, but reshaped what could or could not be considered trauma - previously of which was understood to be war-related or “outside the range of human experience,” thus disregarding sexual, physical, or emotional abuse (Mohamed 2). Additionally, the theory of feminst therapy emerged from the heightened awareness of the violence patriarchy perpetuated, as well as the discussions between women in consciousness-raising groups, where “the energy and emotional fuel for the movement came out of women’s personal experiences'' (Evans 273). Consciousness-raising groups were key in coalescing the connection between individual progress and the social change that was pushed by the large scale TBTN movement, and consequently, encouraging feminists to articulate their understandings of their trauma in a setting that was free from the brutally stereotyped psychological methods used in therapy from the 1960’s. Furthermore, while TBTN contributed to perpetuating racial stereotypes, consciousness-raising meetings sought to include the consciousness of Black women in feminism as they were excluded from the “second wave.” Considering the intersection of race with gender became an essential part to the “core of feminist therapy, with its emphasis on the vision of therapy as an act of political resistance” (Evans 275) that later started to unfold at the end of the 20th century.

Art Making: Zines as Sites of Healing and Information

In order to perform the individual side of healing, many feminists turned to art and writing to “exemplify the connections between personal narratives and political action” (Davidson 97) and heal themselves on an individual level to in turn contribute to social change. For example, consistent marches and political activity on behalf of TBTN organizations occured in the 1980’s alongside the explosion of “zine culture”, that allowed marginalized female creators the liberty to control their own commodities and expressions without the restraint of mainstream censoring or publishing difficulties. In a curation and analysis of over seventy zines, feminist sociologist Dr. Tonya Davidson compiled accounts of violence and individual perspectives young women had on their traumas in relation to TBTN. In a zine titled Can u See Yrself? from the turn of the twenty-first century, anonymous zine contributor referred to as “Allyson” writes about a TBTN protest that occurred on the campus of York University, like many zine artists who mapped the events of TBTN marches;

“So this party of 11 marches around campus, and I’m shouting and carrying on. Hoping that someone I know sees me…we took over parkdale, we took back the streets-for one night. One street, for an hour- but that’s something. If all it did was fill hundreds of wimyn with pride and a feeling of sisterhood that was enough” (Davidson 98).

Red Alert was a zine released in the mid-1990’s that centered on women’s reproductive and sexual experiences. Davidson found a list of question accompanied with an anonymous confession from the writer, “I’m a girl and I’m a sexual abuse survivor. I came up with these questions as part of a healing process for me dealing with being abused by boys, but also cuz I really think a helluva lot more boys need to be thinking more about their sexual relationships with women'' (Davidson 97). The author displays deep awareness of the dissonance between her identity as a sexual abuse survivor, alternatively a trauma victim, and the lack of accountability society had and continues to have towards perpetuators. She takes ownership of her healing process as well as directing her qualms with patriarchy into public question.

Additionally, zines served as sources of information, such as instructions for recognizing abuse, reporting rape, resources to contact, or transition housing. Not only were they mediums of self expressions, but zines were utilized as forms to organize and compile trauma histories in multifaceted manners.

Art Making: Poetry and Literature at the Intersection of Rape and Trauma

Aside from zines, poetry and literature surged as another form of weaving trauma into conceptions of patriarchy and rape victim criminalization, such as Adrienne Rich’s “Rape” from Diving into the Wreck, Poems from 1971-1972. Rich’s poem speaker details an intense and horrific scene between a rape victim and a police officer she is reporting to, knowing that rape was rarely recognized as a crime in the 1970’s. The articulation of the survivor’s story and interiority was one way rape was reconfigured as a horrific act and one that could be damaging to life and one’s psyche that placed in closer to the realm of unimaginable human horror that is trauma.

It is essential to acknowledge that prior to and during the decade of the 1970’s, the National Center for PTSD claimed that “rape was thought of as a rare event, incest as a culturally universal taboo” (Harvey and Herman 1). However, a series of studies at the The Cambridge Hospital Victims of Violence Program that surveyed community and individual samples of adult women concluded that “the data suggest that rape is a familiar experience in the lives of women and girls” (Harvey and Herman 2). Thus, “feminist authors have interpreted rape and incest not as rare and isolated events, but as com­monplace risks in a culture conducive to sexual violence” (Harvey and Herman 2). Establishing statistics and conclusions about the prevalence of rape aided trauma studies in forming an understanding of rape as a factor that was intrinsically weaved through the experiences of women, and even more disturbingly, the juxtaposition of women of color that were susceptible to further violence that remained unseen during their exclusion from second wave feminism.

Before Rich’s publication of Diving into the Wreck, Poems, prolific author Toni Morrison published her first novel The Bluest Eye. It tells the story of Pecola as she struggles with her position as a young Black girl and with rape and incest from the perspective of her foster sister through flashback. The novel focuses on “transforming traumatic memories in narrative ones” which Morrison shows how “this therapeutic process becomes also a movement of resistance, as it rescues erased histories and brings [voices] to public consciousness” (Gomes 108). This piece of literature is an intersecting point of race, voice preservation, rape, and ultimately grappling with trauma on individual level for the greater purpose of public conception.

Conclusion

Art creation is a personal method of coping and the aforementioned examples engage with trauma on a smaller scale, though still within the context of the relationship between trauma and feminism. Consciousness-raising groups were grassroot and investigated trauma in various ways outside of the typical hierarchy traditional mental treatments instilled between patient and client. Art was and continues to be a window into “viewing clients in the context of their lived experience” that remains “consistent with the practice of” (Evans 270) what has been defined as feminist-inflenced therapy. Furthermore, feminists developing space within art directly combats the unspeakable trauma trope as well as the cultural silencing that feminists have historically navigated.

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Engaging with Trauma on a Community Level / Activism

by Katie Kuhlwein

Activism Effects

There is research that shows that those who experience trauma have also found healing larger scale methods such as in feminist movements and activism. 

Activism can be seen as an example of helping others and helping oneself. Helping others in general has been found to be a healthy and effective coping mechanism (Midiarsky, 1991). Survivors of trauma specifically use this coping skill. For example, a study of 16 male victims found that there were three main healthy ways they coped with sexual abuse trauma, one of the ways being helping others (Grossman, 2006). Another study asked 163 undergraduate students found that those who had experienced trauma in their life volunteered more than those who had not experienced trauma (Vollhardt & Staub, 2011).

Specifically with activism, it has been studied as a connection for coping with trauma as well. For example, this study interviewed two white women and they discussed how activism aided in coping with their trauma (Haglili, 2020).  Although not looking at trauma, in a study focusing on 123 lesbian participants answered a questionairre that’s results linked participating in feminist activties with higher self esteem (Leavy & Adams, 1986). Another study focused on lesbian, bisexual, and queer identifying women and found that experiencing discrimination related to their sexuality was posivitely correlated with participating in feminist action. The authors of the study guess that this could be explained due to women experiencing more discrimination being more determined to take part in activism that opposes that discrimination (Friendman & Leaper, 2010). Another study that looked at 20 queer identifying women and transgender participants found similar results that activism was also used a way to heal from discrimination, as well as boosting personal growth and social connections (Hagen et al, 2016). 

Example: #MeToo movement

There are several large feminist movements in response to trauma the United States that can be examined. The #MeToo movement took off nationwide in 2017 as it was popularized by white Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano (coming out about being sexually assaulted by Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein), but was founded in 2006 by a Black activist named Tarana Burke (Gull & Rahman-Jones, 2020). This relatively new movement was started as a way to convey how many survivors of sexual trauma there are and are often silenced. One recent study investigated the effects of this movement gaining such popularity and attention. Through interviews, results from these 16 participants (13 women, 2 genderqueer, 1 man and genderqueer; all anti sexual assault violence actvisits and survivors) showed how many of them thought movements like this are positive for many reasons, the first that it raises awareness to the public and other survivors. Many of them also believed that being involved in this activism helped them personally, such as understanding themselves more, using the activism as a coping mechanism, gaining more self confidence, strengthening their ability to speak on the issue, having improved relationships and making new ones through the activism, and that it gave them support and validation. However, almost all of the participants also described their challenges of being a survivor of sexual trauma and being an activist against sexual violence. This includes how the work can trigger memories of their sexual assault, burn out due to the intense work they do, feeling constantly surrounded by the topic as it gains popularity in the media, and is increasingly stressful for those who have marginlized identies (Strauss-Swanson & Szymanski, 2020). Overall, there appear to be benefits and challenges of being a survivor and being an activist in a movement related to your trauma. 

Take Back the Night

The #MeToo movement is relatively new, so we wanted to look at a movement that had a longer history in the United States. Take Back the Night (TBTN) is a movement with more history, as it proclaims it is, “the earliest worldwide effort to combat sexual violence and violence against women,” (Take Back the Night, n.d.). What started as a phrase used in protests and other activism across the United States starting in the 1970s to bring attention to the issue of sexual violence against women, has become a formal organization in 2001. 

TBTN inspired many protests and rallies throughout the United States over the decades, and even sometimes internationally, with many being held at (but not limited to) college campuses. TBTN usually was in the form of rallying participants together, marching, chanting, having speakers, and sometimes a candlelight vigil. 

TBTN was started as a response to women victims and survivors of sexual assault. Especially in the earlier decades, protests commonly were for women only, citing that it is a space separate from men, the perpetrators of the violence. While some men supporting the movement sometimes still showed up or some events did include men, TBTN kept its focus on women’s experiences and violence to women by men especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Media pushback circulated in the response often when these boundaries were set up about men claiming victimization themselves from being excluded. These debates for rules like this were common for TBTN, as well bringing attention to when trans women were excluded from the events too (Kretschmer & Barber, 2016). 

Another very problematic issue with events like TBTN rallies was that because this movement especially at this time was mostly centered around white, middle class women as victims and often targeted Black and pooper communities, “... which fueled racist media portrayals and increased police surveillance in already disproportionately affected areas. Particularly in the South, marches helped fuel race-based stereotypes that criminalized African American men as rapists, portrayed white women as helpless victims, and designated white men as protectors and saviors, “(Aamot, 2020). In addition, events like TBTN have been connected with pushing the idea that most sexual violence happens at random and/or by a stranger, even though that in reality, numbers today show that around 90% of survivors know their perpetrator (Aamot, 2020). This shows that while TBTN may have been helpful for some as a way to cope with trauma, it was not an available choice for many people, and even have made it worse for others.

By the mid 1990s, third-wave feminism in the U.S. was influenced more widely by queer and transgender ideas, caused a shift in the feminist movement as a whole to challenge the gender binary and be more inclusive as a movement. There was also a push to acknowledge that men and others not identifying as women can be victims of sexual assault too, not just women, so it is hypocritical and invalidting to not include survivors based on sex or gender. These changes in contemporary feminism are seen in the TBTN movement at the time, as there were less restrictions of identities or attendees becoming more common at rallies. 

TBTN became a formal organization in 2001 and has since officially expanded their vision. On their official website it says, “We continue to march forward into the future recognizing and committing to ending sexual violence for all people of all sexual and gender identities, races, ethnicities, nationalities, religious beliefs, ages, abilities, and statuses. We welcome all who will walk, stand, speak, chant, and rally with us until sexual violence is no more.”

Conclusion

TBTN has a complex history as both a vehicle of activism, but also as setting up gendered walls and contributing to racial stereotypes such as the Black rapist targeting the innocent white woman. Chances for activism such as TBTN have also been found to be effective for those who have experienced trauma, though, as a way to cope and make interpersonal connections. Feminist activism is a great opportunity for people to effectively cope with trauma, but if the movements themsleves are not inclusive, many survivors will be left behind.