Willamette University- House Party!
Hi Nancy,
Attached is a picture of the Lines that were on the wall. We passed out stickers too but most people wanted to take them to think about / have mementos, so they didn’t actually write on them.
We’ll get the movie back in the mail soon. Thanks for everything!
-Michelle
P.S. And I don’t have a blog so here is a post that you can put on the website blog:
Hi, my name is Michelle and I’m a Resident Assistant at Willamette University. Every year, the Office of Residence Life puts on a sexual assault and wellness program, and this year we wanted to show the Line! We had the Director of the Health Center there, as well as a representative from Willamette University Men Against Violence (which, like it sounds, is a male-run social activism group), one from the Gay-Straight Alliance, and I myself am a volunteer for a sexual assault and domestic abuse hotline. Sadly, the turnout wasn’t as large as we had hoped for, but oh well.
We watched the film and then we split into two different discussion groups, one that was mixed gender and one that was female only. We did this for the comfort of the participants, in case there were any survivors who maybe wanted to share experiences but didn’t want to do it in front of guys. I facilitated discussion in the women-only group, and two other people headed up the other group. We asked questions like, “Why is it important to know your own line? How can you know your partner’s and how does perception of gender play into this? What do you think about our justice system and do you agree with the perceptions presented in the film?”
In our group, the discussion focused on rape culture, and how guys who are otherwise nice guys can be saturated with really backwards ideas of how to treat women, and what small things can be done to change this. In the mixed-gender group, they focused on the sexiness of consent, the nature of sexual relationships, and what respect means. One thing that was said was, if you are about to have sex with someone and you say “Do you want to have sex?” And they say, “Yes!” that’s pretty much the sexiest thing you could hear right then. And if they say anything but “Yes,” well, aren’t you really really glad you asked then?
Everyone had a really good time and there were many who suggested that our area do more documentary and discussion style events. Overall, a success!
One thing that was really interesting that someone shared in our group, she was at a party and this guy was talking to her, but just brushing her hand or her shoulder, or lightly brushing his hand across her hair once in a while, and it really freaked her out. It crossed a line for her. She just escaped the situation and shrugged it off, but she wondered, if she had called him out on it, he probably would have gotten mad and found some other woman to flirt with. But what if that next woman had also called him out on it? What if every woman he did that to called him out on it and rejected his line-crossing? It just reminded me that we as women can’t just wait for some guys to be respectful, but as a movement, as a group we have to demand it and not accept anything less.
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