Two self-proclaimed feminists and established bloggers shared their views on sexual assault, rape culture, social media and gender-bias at a keynote speaker event Wednesday as a part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment hosted Zerlina Maxwell, a Feministing.com blogger and contributor to the New York Daily News and EBONY.com, and Chloe Angyal, editor of Feministing.com, who is currently writing her doctoral dissertation on the effect romantic comedies have on normalizing and romanticizing rape culture.
Maxwell spoke about what she considers her controversial appearance on “Hannity,” a show on Fox News.
In her appearance on the show on Fox, Maxwell said she engaged in a heated debate with conservative gun activist Gayle Trotter. She said she boldly spoke out against rape on the popular conservative network.
“We should be telling men not to rape women,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell said she woke up the next morning after her appearance on “Hannity” to an inbox full of hate-ridden Facebook and Twitter messages. She added that someone created a meme depicting her as a “stupid, man-hating liberal.”
One of the most popular memes, Maxwell added, featured a picture of her smiling with the word “idiot” written across her face. She said the meme also contained an inaccurate quote that read: “We don’t need guns. Just tell men not to rape women.”
In response to the show, Maxwell said a lot of right-winged media sites picked up the clip. She said her Fox News appearance started an interesting phase in her life.
“Apparently something I said was so offensive that it was on every site,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell, a rape victim herself, said she gained a lot from her appearance on the Fox News show. She said she learned that no matter how scary it is, a rape victim never stops being and talking about being a survivor.
Maxwell and Angyal both stressed the importance of taking a powerful and vocal stand against the belief that men are going to rape and that it is up to women to step out of their way.
She said it is important to refrain from staying silent. She added it is also important for individuals to not feel uncomfortable when talking about the topic of rape.
Angyal, when talking about her journey with feminism, said she was unknowingly raised in a very feminist household. She said she was highly emerged in feminism growing up and, as a result, when she got to high school and people started calling her a feminist, she thought it was crazy there was a label for her thoughts.
“Why do you need a word for that [feminism]”? Angyal said. “That is just common sense.”
Angyal said she thought her views were similar to that of everyone else.
After taking a two-year hiatus from feminism, upon her arrival to Princeton, Angyal said she re-found her passion and fell in love with expressing her feminist views through literature.
“I got addicted to it,” Angyal said. “I fell in love with A) writing about something that I cared about, and B) stirring up difficult conversations.”
PAVE member and event attendee sophomore Stephanie Derks said she thought the event was really cool. Throughout the month of April, she added, PAVE has brought a lot of interesting speakers to campus.
