In the absence of physical space to learn, create, and come together, the Women’s Center is taking Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) 2020 online. Each week during April, we will focus on a specific topic/theme as it relates to sexual violence awareness and prevention (see image below). Together, via out social media platforms like Facebook,Twitter, and Instagram, we can watch videos, read articles, and engage in other content for learning and skill-building.

UMBC’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month online calendar includes weekly themes to help explore important concepts related to sexual violence awareness and prevention. 

But, we get it… Maybe you’re not on Facebook. Maybe you needed to take a break from social media for the day because you’re practicing self-care. Or maybe, you’re still following us on all the things and still missed a pretty cool post. That’s okay! In addition to posting on social media throughout the month, at the end of each week, we’ll provide a round-up of all the content we shared along with some action items to consider doing.

We just wrapped up week one of SAAM and spent the last several days exploring affirmative consent through the following content:

1. “What is affirmative consent?”” brought to you by Retriever Courage and UMBC’s Policy on Prohibited Sexual Misconduct, Interpersonal Violence, and Other Related Misconduct.
   

   Image is part of the Retriever Courage poster campaign. This poster focuses on what consent is and includes a list of what consent is and isn’t. 

2. Affirmative consent is all about saying or confirming an enthusiastic yes because YOU WANT TO… not because you feel like you have to say yes. And, being able to say yes means learning how to say no. We can learn how to create boundaries and say “no” way before we are even thinking about consent in terms of sex and it starts with educating little kids. Everyday Feminism has a great graphic to illustrate this point.
   

   Image Reads: Children are told that adults are owed their attention and affection. When that idea is internalized it can be difficult to accept that no one is owed physical contact or emotional safety.

3. Knowing what you want and don’t want is a key part of being able to participate in affirmative consent. Reviewing and completing a sexual inventory can be a great way for you to identify what you want and don’t want as a first step in being able to communicate your needs. Check out this  Yes, No, Maybe list from Scarleteen.
4. In this time of distance learning, Zoom meetings, and FaceTime as some of our only means of socially connecting with classmates, co-workers, family and friends, it’s even more important to be thinking about digital consent and practicing clear communication. Learn more here. 

Important Take-Away:

→ Affirmative consent is not just about the presence of a no… it is the presence of an enthusiastic yes!

→ Remember FRIES.… consent is: Freely given, Reversible, Informed, Enthusiastic and Specific.

Now that you’ve got some good readings in your tool kit, what will you do with them? Here’s some Action Items:

• Incorporate at least one way you can ask or give consent into your daily life, whether that’s asking to hug someone if you haven’t asked in the past, talking to your friends about tagging you on social media only after they’ve asked you, or offering an alternative way for a young person in your life to show gratitude that isn’t connected to physical touch or affection.
• Share one of the articles above on your social media platforms. Ask your friends or family member if they’d be willing to engage in a conversation with you about one of the takeaways that stood out to you.
• Like tea? Then here’s one more video on consent you can watch and share!

Follow the Women’s Center on myUMBC,  Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for SAAM updates and information throughout the month of April. You can also stay up-to-date by following #UMBCsaam 

Throughout this time of distance learning, campus staff are still here and available for support. Do not hesitate to reach out for questions, concerns, or care.

On-Campus Resources Available for Virtual Support: 

• Counseling Center

• Office of Equity and Inclusion 

• University Health Services

• Women’s Center

• Visit Retriever Courage for a full list of campus resources and support to include resources for USG students, faculty, and staff 

• For up-to-date details on how to access these resources during this time of distance learning visit UMBC’s COVID-19 resources page.

To report a complaint of sexual misconduct or discrimination, please submit this online form. 

Remote or not, Sexual Assault Awareness Month marches forward! Just so, the Women's Center is creating a Virtual Clothesline Project. 

We will be gathering submissions throughout the month and eventually culminating in a Clothesline Project story on IG and FB, and features in the SAAM zine project, "Survivors to the Front: A Call to Witness."*

The Center for Social Science Scholarship invites applications for Faculty Working Groups to promote intellectual exchange in the social sciences and across campus. These collaborative scholarly learning communities will meet regularly to engage in such activities as: working on research projects, reading key literature, exploring new methodological approaches, and/or engaging in matters of public interest related to the social sciences.

Up to four Faculty Working Groups will be selected by the center director and advisory board members. Groups should be faculty-led and must include at least one faculty member from a social science department at UMBC. Additional priority will be given to groups whose members and/or areas of interest are multi- or interdisciplinary. Advanced graduate students may participate as Faculty Working Group members but may not serve as leaders.

Faculty Working Groups can apply for up to $1,000 in annual support ($500 per semester); groups will also be able to apply for continuation funding. Groups may use funds for such items as: supporting regular group meetings; purchasing software, books, or other materials; hosting external speakers; creating scholarly resources; traveling to external sites for research or public engagement purposes; and other similar activities. A brief report of the group’s activities will be due at the end of the funding period.

Apply by May 30, 2020, for groups to begin in Fall 2020.

Click on the attached file to download the application form. 

Applications should be submitted via email to socialscience@umbc.edu. Questions may be directed to Christine Mallinson, Director of the Center for Social Science Scholarship.

Nandi is a student staff member in the Women’s Center and a Junior English major.

Mutual aid, as a concept, is based in anarchism and the work of Petr Kropotkin. His work, “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution”, is a foundational text for anarchists and other communist movements. But really, you don’t have to be an anarchist or a communist, or know anything about these ideologies to practice mutual aid because it’s an extremely simple concept.

Basically, the theory supposes that people (and other creatures) are FAR more inclined to taking care of each other than they are to individualism, no matter how much our capitalist ruling class argues to the contrary. The Seattle-based collective Big Door Brigade defines the practical application of mutual aid as “when people get together to meet each other’s basic survival needs with a shared understanding that the systems we live under are not going to meet our needs and we can do it together RIGHT NOW!” They also make the point that it is a separate and distinct practice from charity and charitable organizations. 

Image by Seth Tobocman

Historically, mutual aid looks a lot of different ways. The Free African Society in 1787 was an organization meant to provide aid amongst free Black people. In the 20th century, there were Italian-American organizations called Societa di Mutuo Soccorso and Mexican-American societies called Sociedad Mutualistas. Larger worker movements and labor unions are also a part of this tradition as they necessitate collaboration and care work as a means to stay afloat while struggling for rights. Labor organizing in the US is at its lowest point in decades, but that doesn’t mean that we still can’t connect to our communities right now in the present to help everyone survive. 

In feminist movements, mutual aid is a thread that runs throughout as an ongoing necessity among those who are oppressed under patriarchy. It’s not hard to see why; power-based violence, hiring discrimination, and wage gaps all team up to make people of oppressed genders dependent on one another rather than the institutions that their oppressors control.

Anarchist Feminist flag

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development has mutual aid as a key piece of their “Solidarity Economy”, an economy in which people’s relationship to goods and services is more sustainable and cooperative. To go along with that, anarchist feminism interprets the labeling of actions like sharing, compassion, and sensitivity as “feminine” to mean that these are direct challenges to the “masculine” hierarchy. 

Maybe you’ve seen mutual aid mentioned on social media in the past few weeks, or maybe you haven’t. Right now, due to COVID-19, we’re all in a position to rely on one another for safety and survival. We usually think of networking as a means to further ourselves towards our own goals and ambitions. Now is a time to network with the people in our neighborhoods and communities for our common good. Practicing mutual aid doesn’t mean that everyone has to gather and social distancing has to go out the window because those are important things to do for our communities as well.

If in reaching out you find a need that you can fill, then do so! If someone in your network has access to resources that you can’t find, then make your own needs known! As capable and resourceful as we are, self-reliance is not the order of the day. Lean into your human inclinations towards care and comradeship to make it through.

Hundreds of mutual aid groups have popped up all over the country in the past month to address the dire straits we now find ourselves in, with most of them being led by the organizers who dedicate their lives to this work every day. 

To find one near you, you can go to the interactive map on mutualaidhub.org, or this list posted on the Its Going Down digital community center. Its Going Down also has organizing guides and resources so that you don’t have to go into this unlearned. I’ve put in for the Baltimore Maroon Movement! Who in YOUR community needs your help?