Take Back the Night and Male Allies
You are interested in supporting women’s rights, safety and ending violence in our community. That’s amazing! We are very happy to learn that more and more people are taking to the issues of equality for all!
For info on what you can do RIGHT NOW to help prevent gender violence click here.
For details on the Male Allies Solidarity Event, Taking on the Man – Strategies for Challenging Sexism, click here.
Take Back the Nights started as a response to the mythical idea that women need male protection to walk safely at night. Take Back the Night is a response to all the “rules” that women are told to follow in order to be safe in our lives — “don’t go out late at night”, “dress a certain way”, or “walk in well-lit areas”.
We continue to organize Take Back the Night as a women-only space to honour this history and to reaffirm women’s strength.
Male Allies can support this by also working to honour and validate women’s experiences:
Safe Space
Survivors of sexual assault can be of any gender, age, income level, immigration status or ethnicity. However, we do know that most of the survivors of sexual assault are women (92%) and most of the perpetrators are men (86%). While we know that most rape is perpetrated by men we also know that most men are not rapists. We believe in trying to create a safe space for survivors of violence. Women survivors of violence tell us that women-only spaces are important in their healing journey.
Women’s Experience of Sexism
Because of the way we are raised, our society encourages women to be quieter, take up less space and take care of others. We want to minimize these societal expectations of women and connect with our strength, our leadership and our power.
Women Only Spaces are Rare in Our Society
Try turning on the radio or TV to a random station at a random time. Chances are that you will hear or see something that is created by men, features men and/or is performed by men. For three hours, once a year we want to create a women-only space and experience what it is like to be surrounded by women.
Being an Awesome Male Ally Means Knowing When to Step Back
Gendered violence will not end until everyone is committed to speaking out. We truly appreciate the support of our allies – but there are times when women want to organize spaces for ourselves. Because of how we are raised, men are not often taught to follow women’s lead, and that may be a key challenge for men who aspire to support the women’s movement. Powerful male allies recognize when it is appropriate to take on a supportive role and step back when women choose to organize separately.
Creating Women Leaders
By creating a space for women’s voices to be heard we also create opportunities for girls to see women take a leadership positions. Hamilton’s Take Back the Night event is a chance for youth in our community to see powerful women role models.
At SACHA we believe that it takes many ways of organizing to end violence against women and to challenge the systems which hold sexism in place in our society. We recognize that there are many different and effective ways to organize. For three hours in September we choose to claim an unapologetic women-identified only space.
