OU students to walk "A Mile Together to End Power-Based Personal Violence" to spread awareness on the ways to combat power-based violence.
In conjunction with Trans Empowerment Week, the weeklong event, "A Mile Together," aims to educate students about power-based personal violence and raise awareness about sexual assault prevention.
Originally known as "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes," the event has been re-titled "A Mile Together to End Power-Based Personal Violence" and reformatted to be more inclusive.
“By changing the name of the event, it reestablishes how people think of the victim and the perpetrator,” Jessica Arnold, a graduate student studying international development studies, said.
Free T-shirts with messages and tips regarding power-based personal violence will be given out at Baker Center on Thursday, and students are encouraged to take a T-shirt and wear it throughout the day.
Volunteers will be riding the escalators in Baker Center all day while wearing the T-shirts to spread awareness, and students are encouraged to join the movement, Phoenix Crane, a junior studying psychology, said.
“We also changed (the name) so that it’s not just sexual assault. It’s power-based personal violence,” Crane said.
Crane said power-based personal violence is a form of violence that has the primary motivation of asserting control/dominance over an individual. It is used in recognition that the perpetrator and victim can be of any gender.
“Not all violence occurs when you’re walking down a street alone at night. It also occurs in domestic relationships, when partners can’t consent with each other, and with power dynamics,” Crane said.
Led by Ben Braddock, the GA for Sexual Assault Prevention & Relationship Violence Risk Reduction, the event hopes to raise awareness about the ways in which power-based personal violence is manifested on campus and the different ways students can intervene to make their campus a safer place.
“We really wanted to take it away from this (idea of) abled bodied men taking action for women to this idea of everyone taking action because we can all prevent violence,” Braddock, a graduate student in the College Student Personnel Program, said.
There will be an Open Mic Night for Survivor Stories at Donkey Coffee and Espresso on Tuesday, and Braddock said the event will be a powerful opportunity to hear people’s experiences as well as some bystander experiences.
“One of the biggest barriers with people taking action is that when you think of bystander intervention, they think of directly walking and saying something,” Braddock said. “Many students aren’t comfortable with that, so we’re showing them that there’s actually several ways you can intervene to keep your fellow Bobcats safe.”
POWER/GAMMA and student group Better Bystanders in Baker were cited as some of the places that students can direct their questions regarding power-based personal violence.
“(The event) is all about prevention and the spreading of education and knowledge,” Arnold said. “If people know what consent (and) power-based personal violence is, they’re less likely to be perpetrators and less likely to accept that kind of behavior from their friends.”
Braddock said sexual assault can occur to anyone regardless of gender, and anyone can be an advocate for prevention.
“It’s not just a woman’s problem. It’s everyone’s problem,” Crane said.
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