Seventeen-year-old Val stood on the stage in the Park Blocks early Thursday evening and told a crowd of over 100 that she was raped two years ago.
Val, like most rape survivors, did not give her last name. She said life after being raped is not easy. Val now sees it as important to speak out about her experience so other survivors can know they are not alone.
“I am not a victim anymore. I am not a spectator to my own life,” Val said. “The difference between a victim and a survivor is that survivors speak.”
Val spoke for Take Back the Night, the largest event held in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. She was the first of more than a dozen who addressed the audience in an effort to speak out against rape culture and raise awareness about outreach for sexual assault survivors.
The annual event was a collaboration between the Women’s Resource Center, the PSU Bicycle Cooperative, Allies Against Rape Culture and the Portland Women’s Crisis Line. The night included a community bike ride from Colonel Summer Park to campus, performances by local artists, testimonies of sexual and domestic violence survivors, a candle-lit vigil and a rally around downtown to raise awareness of sexual assault.
Take Back the Night has existed in one form or another across campuses in the United States for over 30 years.
For years the event on campus has grown and become more collaborative, organizers said, with more people willing to come out and share their experiences with sexual assault and how they have become empowered to speak out against it.
This event is designed to give people the chance they might not otherwise have to share what they have learned and how to help others. As one woman at the event explained it, it puts them on “a road to healing.”
The night’s bike ride, called Bike Back the Night, happened for the first time this year and was planned separately from Take Back the Night. The idea, which was sponsored by the Portland Women’s Crisis Line, came from one of the employees of the center, Ledena Mattox, who attended Take Back the Night last year and wanted to incorporate bikes into the outreach. Mattox, along with co-organizer Lyndi Burton, saw Take Back the Night as the perfect opportunity to get involved with the community and bring visibility to sexual assault and the crisis line.
Along the ride, community members, including a mother and her preschool-aged daughter, held up signs saying, “thanks for the support.”
“It is a way for us as a community to say things can be different,” Burton said.
“The idea always was that our ride would bring people to Take Back the Night,” Mattox said. “I feel that it could only happen in Portland.”
About 75 riders biked over the Hawthorne Bridge and up Park Avenue to campus, where they were greeted with cheers outside the Smith Memorial Student Union.
One of the bikers, PSU alumnus Devin Dinihanian, heard about the event through a co-worker at the Portland Women’s Crisis Line. Dinihanian felt that sexual assault indirectly affects everyone, and he was there to demonstrate that people can have healthy relationships.
The two co-chairs of Take Back the Night, Tash Shatz and Bianca Fornoni, both members of the Allies Against Rape Culture student group, say they were very happy with the outcome of the event and the enthusiasm of the attendants.
“A lot more people showed up than we expected,” Fornoni said.
Both Shatz and Fornoni took leadership roles for this event because they wanted to improve it and allow community members to voice their experiences. This year was the first time people from the community were allowed to speak without preplanning their testimonies.
“I think it makes more of an impact that way. It becomes more than a statistic, by seeing and hearing stories of one survivor after another talking about their experiences,” Fornoni said.
Shatz said that it is important for people to become aware of sexual assault and how to prevent it in the future. “The more folks get involved in the movement, it becomes more clear how rampant sexual assault is.”