By Jacquelyn Letizia, Staff Writer
On April 18, Susquehanna held an event called Walk a Mile in Her Shoes on Smith Lawn. The event was sponsored by the Counseling Center, Transitions, the Athletics department and the Interfratnerity Council.
The event started with a discussion and refreshments, with the walk starting soon af- ter talks from Adjunct Faculty Women’s Studies Christiana Paradis and District Attourney Mike PIecuch.
Walk a Mile in Her Shoes is an event that was started in 2001 and is intended to raise awareness and start discussions about sexual assault and sexualized violence. Inspiration for the event came from the saying “you can’t really understand an- other person’s experience until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” The aim is to have men walk in women’s high heels and experience the difficulty of it, which in turn hopes to start a conversation about men’s attitude and sexualized violence towards women.
According to the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes website, every two minutes someone in America is raped and one in six American women are victims of sexual assault. These statistics do not only affect the people in these situations, but also influence these individuals’ friends, families, and communities.
“Attendees can be guaranteed a safe space to speak openly about their thoughts and opinions on topics surrounding sexual assault and sexual violence,” sophomore Alyssa Miville explained. “We want everyone on campus to feel welcome and included in our community, so this is a great opportunity for them to have their voice heard— not to mention that it will be a wonderful learning experience, especially for those who are un- aware of the facts and statistics surrounding the epidemic.”
Miville also explains that she “hope[s] the event will spark ideas on how campus staff can better connect with student to more effectively address their well-being and safety concerns both on and off campus.”
At the event, there was decent turnout of male participants for the event, and many faculty and staff members were in attendance.
There was also a group of students that protested the event. Students that were against the event felt that by equating the experience of sexual assault victims to the minor inconvenience of wearing heels was inappropriate and unjust. Additionally, using the idea of men walking in heels and making it comical is disrespectful to those men who enjoy wearing heels. This protest had several students in attendance, including senior Samantha Zuckowich.
Zuckowich is the student who organized the protest and gave a speech at the event.
“Ultimately, I became pretty upset with the way that the school has been handling sexual assault after the reports had gone through that almost no one was being expelled after people had been proven guilty of their actions,” Zuchowich explained. “By organizing this demonstration, I wanted to get the attention of the administration mostly, but also of the people who are charged with organizing events and initiatives like this, hoping that they’ll be more socially aware in organizing events and things like this in the future.”
