Despite the freezing weather, a crowd of students from MSU Students for Choice came together on Valentine’s Day for a march to raise awareness for the campaign One Billion Rising.
According to One Billion Rising's website, the campaign is "the biggest mass action to end violence against women in human history." The campaign is based on the statistic that 1 in 3 women around the world will be physically or sexually abused in their lifetime.
That amounts to a staggering more than one billion women.
MSU Students for Choice President and interdisciplinary studies in social science junior Cayley Winters’ goal for the One Billion Rising march was to create more visibility about the cause and rape culture in general.
“The reason I joined MSU Students for Choice is because, as an intersectional feminist, I wanted to focus on reproductive health and justice,” Winters said. “Reproductive justice is intertwined with other justices, and without reproductive health we wouldn’t be in the same place as a country.”
Winters organized the march to begin at the Rock on Farm Lane and continued towards Grand River Avenue. Marchers then walked to Harrison RoadHouse near Michigan Avenue.
English education junior Kelsey Wiley, also a part of MSU Students for Choice, said the slogan for this year’s One Billion Rising campaign is “Listen, Act, Rise, Revolution."
“It’s not like we are trying to attack people on Valentine’s Day,” Wiley said. “Today we are creating visibility. We want anyone who cares about this cause to think they can do something about it.”
She also said members of the group want systematic change.
“This kind of injustice is intolerable,” Wiley said.
Lansing resident Stephen Monti said he attended the event because he thinks the statistic about 1 in 3 women around the world being physically or sexually abused in their lifetime is shocking.
“Rape culture is about assassinating the character of the victim,” Monti said. “People still blame women for the way they dress and where they go, and people don’t talk about the person who abused her.”
Aside from the march, MSU Students for Choice has other plans for other events for the rest of the semester. The group is gearing up for an educational session on March 1.
“We are going to teach everyone where all of the candidates stand on women’s reproductive rights,” Winters said.
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