On March 8, Carleton kicked off International Women’s Day with a panel discussion about women and the media, a self-defence seminar, and a sexual health workshop.
International Women’s Day is still important and still needs to be recognized. One in four Canadian women are sexually assaulted, according to Sexual-Assault.ca. Only six out of every 100 incidents of sexual assault are reported to the police. Over 80 per cent of reported acts of sexual violence are committed against women. None of these statistics have changed since 2002.
But the importance of Women’s Day goes beyond the numbers. Last week, we ran an opinion piece that showed that attitudes of privilege and entitlement of women’s bodies and rape culture still exist, and are far more insidious and pervasive than we think. Opinion pieces submitted to the Charlatan do not reflect our individual or collective views, though they appear in our pages. We strongly disagree with the piece we ran. We do not denounce the writer for speaking his mind, but we do denounce the ideas that are the basis of his writing.
We at the Charlatan strongly believe in free speech, and that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, we did a disservice to our community in not making greater attempts to find someone with an opposing view. We should have tried harder to have an opinion piece about the great strides the feminist movement has already made, and how vital campaigns like Draw the Line are in continuing that work. We sincerely apologize to our readers for failing to be sensitive and balance this argument in light of International Women’s Day.
