Chicago—(ENEWSPF)—August 21, 2014. Chicago’s largest annual feminist demonstration returns to Daley Plaza this year to demand an end to rape culture.
A Press Conference will be held at Daley Plaza, 50 W. Washington, at 12: p.m. The march will begin at 12:30 p.m.
Speakers Will Represent:
* The Sex Worker’s Outreach Project
* Rape Victims Advocates
* The Illinois Choice Action Team
* The Women’s Caucus of the Workers’ Organizing Committee of Chicago (Fight for 15)
* Black and Pink Chicago
* The Gay Liberation Network
Background:
Now in its fourth year, SlutWalk Chicago is part of an international movement of people who refuse to accept the normalization of sexual and gender-based violence. The SlutWalk movement began in 2011 when a Toronto police officer told a group of young women that they should “avoid dressing like sluts” to prevent rape.
In response, Toronto activists staged a demonstration against the victim-blaming narratives that are so pervasive in our society. Shortly after the protest in Toronto, SlutWalks sprang up across the world to demand an end to sexual violence and the culture of silence, shame, and blame that perpetuates it. The first Chicago SlutWalk was held in 2011.
Rape culture is a broad term that describes a range both explicit and implicit phenomena that encourage and normalize sexual violence; victim-blaming, slut-shaming, and refusing to believe survivors are just some of its manifestations.
Rape culture also describes the state of our institutions: police who commit sexual assault, judges who question the victim’s state of intoxication, Justice Departments that refuse to test rape kits, media pundits who say victims ‘ask for it’, and a criminal justice system that frequently incarcerates women and LGBTQ-identified individuals for defending their bodies against sexual assault.
Rape culture refers to an entire cultural fabric of gender stereotypes and policing, rampant sexual harassment, catcalling, street harassment, the elimination of resources for survivors, and the entire neoliberal narrative that individuals, not systems, are responsible for the ills that befall them.
For additional information, see: https://www.facebook.com/events/1422020151371257
