As The ARTivism Lab Speakers Series went on, and many panelist’s came to the podium to speak about their work, the meaning of it to them, and the different issues they face, one speaker struck me. As Sandra Jeppesen, an associate professor at Lakehead University, talked about her work, she mentioned a quick story that I was unaware of. She mentioned a story that featured a cop, who spoke in front of a group of female law students at Osgoode Hall Law School. He happened to say to them, “If you don’t dress like a slut then you will not get sexually assaulted.”

I was alarmed to hear this story as I sat in my seat and rapidly took notes during the panelists’ presentations, and quickly a memory came to mind when Sandra mentioned this story. I few months back, I went to Nairobi, Kenya, to work at a local orphanage in a small town. I met a beautiful, lively young women, just about my age, who had started going to the orphanage a few years back. I was told the story of how she got to the orphanage, and I share it with you now because when Sarah mentioned the story with the ignorant police man, I immediately thought of her.

Her story started when she was fourteen, and her parents abandoned her, as well as her two younger siblings – one was still a newborn and still needed to be breast fed. Since she was the oldest, she had to take on the role of taking care of her siblings. To avoid starvation, she would go house to house, and ask for food. When she got to one house and asked if the man had any spare food, he told her to come inside to wait, and would get some for her. Instead of helping her, he enticed her inside with the prospect of feeding her younger siblings, and raped her.

I never thought about what she may have been wearing. Since she was living on the streets she was probably wearing dirty, torn clothing. Doesn’t sound very provocative to you does it? To think that what she was wearing had something to do with why she was raped was unfathomable. They didn’t correlate; they had absolutely no connection. The man had the control, he had the power, and he took complete advantage of her helplessness as a young woman.

When I hear about the “reasons” women are raped, and what women need to do differently to avoid it, it makes my blood boil. Activists and social changers like the panelists who presented today, are needed to make this world a better place, but also to help the world see the issues we are drowning in today.

An article that we needed to read for class, written by Susan Preston and Jordan Aslett, talks about neoliberalism in the classroom; how classes are getting larger and information needs to be more generalized to accommodate every student in the classroom. The author mentions that they did not want to conform to generalizing the content in the course, making key issues and specific topics impossible to discuss and hard to actually get into detail. So often, this applies to us, both within the classroom and outside. We do not get into the nitty gritty issues and problems in our own society. We don’t address them, and we don’t take the effort to go right out and say what needs to be heard. High schools are filled with boys who make fun of girls and call them sluts, universities are filled with young men who haven’t been taught how to respect women and businesses do not shine a light on the fact that the women aren’t as appreciated in the workplace.

No wonder victim blaming and slut shaming, among so many other negative and grotesque things are so prevalent in our world today.

Through listening to the inspiring panelist’s tonight, I learned that social activism does not end with social media, which another panelist, Susana Nyagra, spoke about. Just talking about these issues is not enough if you never do anything about it. I cannot wait to find ways to better enhance the lives of those around me with support, with advocating, and with doing something. These panelist’s have all made differences in their own lives and in others, and I hope to do the same.

Works Cited

Present, Susan. “Resisting Neoliberalism from within the Academy: Subversion through       an Activist Pedagogy.” Rutledge. et al. Aslett, Jordan. 2013. Date Accessed: 6 February 2018.