March to End Victim Blaming held on the University of Connecticut campus in Fall 2017. (Amar Batra/The Daily Campus)
The University of Connecticut student organization, Revolution Against Rape (RAR), plans on smaller events after the success of its event last semester, “The March to the End Victim Blaming.”
President of the organization Erica Petropoulos, pointed out that a large number of new members joined last semester. RAR had many first- and second-year students join last semester, she said. Petropoulos is working on building the next generation of RAR as three of its five executive board members will be graduating this spring.
Petropoulos, an eighth-semester double major in political science and women, gender and sexuality studies, reflected on the march last semester and said she was satisfied with what RAR accomplished. Petropoulos had wanted to change the name of the event from “SlutWalk” to its current name for a long time, she said.
“As an e-board, we felt like the name ‘SlutWalk’ didn’t accurately represent what the event actually was,” Petropoulos said. “Additionally, we recognize that not everyone may be comfortable with reclaiming the word ‘slut,’ for various reasons.”
RAR seeks to end rape and sexual assault in the community, according to their Facebook page.
“Our goals are to educate the community about the prevalence of sexual assault in our society and work to bring an end to gender-based violence and rape culture,” according to the page.
“Since next year will be a transition year for our organization, I want to leave RAR in a position to keep moving forward and making change on our campus,” Petropoulos said.
RAR has several dedicated, passionate members who will bring energy to the coming semester and beyond, Petropolous said. RAR plans on doing smaller events, one each month, one of which will be selling “consent cupcakes” for Valentine’s Day.
The cupcake sale will act as a fundraiser for the organization, and seek to spread the message about the importance of consent and healthy relationships, Petropoulos said.
“We felt like Valentine’s Day would be a good opportunity for us to incorporate consent into our event – to remind people to get consent on Valentine’s Day, and every other day, too,” Petropoulos said.
Petropoulos added that having the event will promote “consent and healthy relationship models.”
“I’m really excited about this, because not only is it a way for us to raise money for our organization, but also we’ll be attaching messages about consent and healthy relationships to the cupcakes,” Petropoulos said.
The organization meet on Mondays from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. in room 125 of the Information Technologies Building. For more information about RAR and events they are holding this semester, email uconnrar@gmail.com.
Kimberly Nguyen is the associate managing editor for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at kimberly.nguyen@uconn.edu.