EASA Hosts Consent Fest for Community
Exonians Against Sexual Assault (EASA) hosted its second annual Consent Fest in Phelps Commons, colloquially known as Agora, this past Friday night. A variety of clubs and teams set up booths with infographics and posters to inform Exonians about the role of gender and sexuality in their respective fields.
EASA’s own booth provided free black “Got Consent” bracelets and took orders for the matching black “Got Consent?” t-shirts. EASA coheads and members walked around Agora wearing the shirts, including the special edition created for Dunbar’s Back in Black dance in September.
EASA co-head and senior Grace Carroll described the intent of the event and the different groups it spotlighted. “Consent Fest is meant to bring the discussion around consent and sexual violence to a bigger part of the Exeter community,” she said. “We invited an intentionally diverse group of clubs to participate, most of whom looked at the intersections between issues of consent and whatever interest their club focuses on.” Co-head and senior Jane Collins explained with an analogy: “Consent Fest is basically a ‘science fair’ for topics related to sexual assault, harassment and gender violence.”
The Dance Company created posters highlighting specific issues regarding sexual assault within dance groups around the world. “It was great to be included because sexual assault and harassment is such an important issue,” lower and dancer Christina Xiao said. “Being able to educate other people on how it plays out in the dance world was great for bringing awareness.”
They also spoke about the power dynamics often associated with sexual assault. “In ballet, especially, the majority of dancers are female but the schools and companies are led by men,” upper and dancer Khine Win said. “This extreme population divide breeds an unhealthy culture [where] many women are afraid to speak up and put their careers at risk.” In their personal research of the dance community, Exeter’s Dance Company found that the environment sometimes held dancers back from coming forward to expose their maltreatment.
The ESSO Club Amnesty International, a chapter of the global organization, took an active approach during the festival. The group spotlighted the poor conditions of sex workers in the Dominican Republic and asked students to sign a petition by Amnesty International to help them. Although the sex working industry is legal in the country, it is not heavily regulated and women are often abused not only by customers but law enforcers. Later in the night, Amnesty International also featured a petition to request Denmark lawmakers’ acknowledgment of sexual assault cases.
Only a few steps away, the wrestling team discussed sexism in the sports community, with a poster of transgender wrestler Mack Beggs, who had been denied the right to compete in both assigned and chosen gender.
On the other side of the agora, Exeter’s Feminist Union highlighted sexual assault statistics for the Military. Notably, the booth examined sexual assault for all genders and brought the experiences of men to the forefront of their viewer’s attention.
This year, the Afro-Latinx Exonian Society (ALES) created pamphlets describing the struggles of women of color and sexual assault. Decked out in the classic ALES black and gold, members discussed popular cases such as Anita Hill’s accusations against Clarence Thomas and many more.
On the front of the pamphlets read, “We believe all women,” a statement becoming increasingly widespread with the #MeToo movement. ALES also wished to inform others about the origins of the movement and how many people often forget that a black woman began the hashtag.
As the time neared 8 p.m. in the evening, DRAMAT began to perform two short excerpts from plays. Upper Alisha Simmons and senior Ava Harrington recited a scene from “Actually.” In the play, Simmons played the role of an African American girl who had a crush on Harrington’s white character. Throughout the scene, the two had several soliloquies that informed the audience about the aftermath of their encounter. Harrington’s character finally confessed that she falsely accused Simmons’ character of rape. Simmons was then questioned and the audience was left without a conclusion; instead forced to think about privilege and how it can be easily abused.
Seniors Nat Love and Jake Blaisdell, meanwhile, represented a young girl and serial kidnapper, respectively, in Julia Cho’s “BFE,” which will be performed in its entirety on May 3rd for the DRAMAT Weekend of Women. The room was stiff as Love’s character became increasingly nervous and begged for freedom with drastic measures. The scene pieced together aspects of true cases and left undertones that stressed the gravity of the lesser known ones.
EASA hopes to continue Consent Fest in the future, in conjunction with other consent-related initiatives. “EASA worked with Dr. [Christina] Palmer’s office to rework the upcoming Bringing in the Bystander training that the upper class will undergo this week,” Carroll said. “We wanted to make sure an opportunity to discuss and evaluate Exeter’s culture of sexual violence wasn’t lost.”