The UN’s push for 2013 to be the year to end violence against women highlights this need
By Janice Nienaber
Photos by Mark Burnham
International Women’s Day is a solid reminder of the importance of a women’s centre at SFU. This year, the UN’s theme for International Women’s Day is “A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women.” This highlights the SFU Women Centre’s role as a safe haven from violence, but that isn’t all the women’s centre is.
People are often surprised at the presence of a women’s centre on a university campus. When I first told my friends that I had started to drop by the SFU Women’s Centre, I was met with skeptical glances and concerned leading questions like “has someone hit you?” and “what is it doing there anyway?”
To this day, a women’s centre holds connotations of being reserved for “broken” women. While many women’s centres are crucial in helping the homeless and abused, this mentality suggests that other women might not need a women’s centre at all. However, all women (regardless of circumstance) can find value in the women’s centre.
A common student response to surveys about the need for the SFU Women’s Centre is that it provides a sense of safety. Students at SFU, including me, seek out the women’s centre because we feel safe there. You may ask: isn’t SFU “safe”? Well, consider this:
Every day, most women get a lot of unwanted sexual attention. Statistics Canada reports that 87 per cent of women have experienced sexual harassment. Unwanted sexual attention often starts during our pre-teen years and continues into adulthood without any sign of stopping. Yes, we are legally protected from rape and abuse, but we are not safe from subtle sexism and harassment.
Canadian women, as a group, are routinely groped in clubs, cat-called in streets, hit on by managers, ogled on the bus, and sexually harassed online. The media tells us that we need to be beautiful and sexy to be valued, but then we’re accused of being a “slut” when we sleep with someone.
On (and off of) SFU’s campus, we have to listen to sexist jokes and rape jokes by guys who think it’s funny to joke about something that degrades and scares women. If we don’t laugh along with these sexist jokes, we’re often accused of having no sense of humour.
Really, we love to laugh, but find it hard when we’re being demeaned simply for being a woman. Yes, most guys are really nice people that wouldn’t purposefully make women feel uncomfortable; nonetheless, it still happens.
In the SFU Women’s Centre, there’s none of this. It’s one of the rare public spaces where we can find this sense of safety.
That is why girls who aren’t homeless, battered (or otherwise abused) also need the women’s centre. The SFU Women’s Centre provides shelter in a world where most of us never feel completely safe from unwanted sexual attention.
Unwanted sexual attention does not always put women in immediate physical danger in the way that sexual violence does. However, inside and outside of school, it remains our reality and it remains degrading.
The UN’s focus for International Women’s Day is ending violence against women. However, violence and unwanted sexual attention against women will not end by itself. It will only end when men and women demand it from their society, their peers, and themselves. The SFU Women’s Centre is crucial in making this happen.
