Take Back the Night

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(Tagged February 2006)

Take Back the Night (also known as Reclaim the Night) is an international march and rally intended as a protest, and direct action, against rape and other forms of violence against women, originated by the radical feminist movement.

Accounts differ as to when and where the first Take Back the Night march was held [1]. The term "Take Back the Night" was used in 1977 as the title of a memorial read by Anne Pride at an anti-violence rally in Pittsburgh [2]; "Reclaim the Night" marches were held in Rome in 1976 as a reaction to recently released rape statistics, and in West Germany in 1977 (demanding "the right to move freely in their communities at day and night without harassment and sexual assault"), and in 11 towns in England later in 1977 (in response to the "Ripper Murders" in Leeds). The first known "Take Back the Night" march in the United States was organized in San Fransisco on November 4, 1975, by Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media, and marched through the red-light district of San Fransisco in protest of rape and pornography (which they identified with the sexualized subordination of women). Susan Brownmiller, a radical feminist journalist who participated in the San Fransisco march, recalls,

"Saturday evening [November 4, 1977] culminated in a candlelit "Take Back the Night" march (the first of its kind) through the porn district, kicked off by an exhortation by Andrea Dworkin. ... Her call to action accomplished, three thousand demonstrators took to the streets, snaking past Broadway's neon peeps, "adult" book stores, and garish massage parlors while Holly Near sang from an amplified truck and local artists weaved through the line bobbing surreal effigies of madonnas and whores."
— Susan Brownmiller, 'In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution, 301-302)

Image:Takebackthenight.jpg

Events typically consist of a rally, followed by a march, and often completed with a speak-out or candlelight vigil on violence against women. The marches are often deliberately women-only, in order to symbolize women's individual walk through darkness, and to demonstrate that women united can resist fear and violence. (Other marches include men; the organization differs as each event is organized locally.)

While the march began as a way to protest the violence that women experienced while walking in public at night, the purpose of these marches was to speak out against this violence and raise community awareness as a preventative measure against future violence. The movement has since grown to encompass all forms of violence against all persons, men, women, and children, though violence against women is still the movement's main focus. The word night was originally meant to be taken literally to express the fear that many women feel during the night, but has since changed to symbolize a fear of violence in general. This helps the movement incorporate other feminist concerns such as domestic violence and sexual abuse within the home. The march has grown from a widely publicized event that took place in major cities to an event that happens internationally from large metropolitan areas to small college campuses, all advocating for the right of everyone to feel safe from violence.

Women are often told to be extra careful and take precautions when going out at night. In some parts of the world, even today, women are not allowed out at night. So when women struggle for freedom, we must start at the beginning by fighting for freedom of movement, which we have not had and do not now have. We must recognize that freedom of movement is a precondition for anything else. It comes before freedom of speech in importance because without it freedom of speech cannot in fact exist. Source

The march has since spread to many locales. There is even a presence in rural New Hampshire, where women (and men) stage their annual "Take Back the Night March" throughout the campus.

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