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Rescuing Jouissance A personal history of taking back the night. BY SOPHIE POOLE CW: mention of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment.
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y mother recently sent me a newspaper clipping from March 20, 1990. She was featured in The Daily Trojan for her work as an undergraduate with the newly-founded Women’s Issues Advocacy office at the University of Southern California. She stumbled across an announcement for the office’s establishment, and found herself, as if struck by a spell, walking into the Student Union building and asking for a job. The office was cramped, with one Macintosh computer, so she sat wherever there was room—often a small settee in the corner. She organized CARE (Creating Attitudes for a Rape-Free Environment) Week, and the daily paper covered the first event: At a table set up on Truesdale Parkway, USC’s College Walk, my mother and other students encouraged their peers to sign anti-rape pledges. The image alongside the article pictures my mom (referred to as “Sheri Davis of CARE”) as she “explains the anti-rape pledge to Risa Field, a junior majoring in broadcast journalism.” She wore her hair differently then—longer, with blunt bangs. The quality I recognize most is her posture. She leans across a table, holding the pledge out to Risa. Her outstretched hands reveal her characteristic sensitivity. The shot is overexposed, but there is something about her figure that glows with newfound purpose. A social worker now, my mother often works with women and adolescent girls; to complete her Masters in Social Work, she wrote her thesis on domestic violence in the Jewish community. In this photo, I imagine she arrived at an understanding: She could do something for those who felt scared, or hurt, or abused, or angry, or exploited. Along with her work with the Women’s Issues Advocacy office, my mother led the Women’s Assembly and organized Take Back the Night on USC’s campus, an annual event protesting violence against women. TBTN was born in the 70s and quickly became emblematic of second-wave feminism. The event was a mainstay on college campuses by the 80s and 90s: In April 1988, over 350 Barnard and Colum-
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bia students organized and attended the school’s first TBTN. A photograph on the official website shows a swell of students cascading onto Broadway, headed toward sites where “men prevent us [women] from walking alone.” On 114th Street, with its string of fraternity brownstones, Carman Hall, and Riverside Park, choruses of “Women unite; take back the night” and “We’re gonna beat, beat back those sexist attacks” punched the air. One participant wielded a sign with the message, “Even in the stacks we’re not safe.” In the following year, and on the opposite coast, a young Sheri stood in a crowd circling the Tommy Trojan statue. She also chanted: “Claim our bodies, claim our right, take a stand, take back the night!” Once galvanizing to college students in 1988 and 1989, these feminist rhymes seem hollow today, as if a throng of protesters were screaming into a cavernous space. Echoes begetting echoes. Elegies of upskirting, mattress-carrying, Lyft drivers masturbating behind the wheel, apartment stalkers, Sarah Everard, “fifth female victim reports random attack at NYC subway station.” Violence continues, undoubtedly, despite TBTN protests, self-defense classes in Central Park, hot-pink pepper sprays dangling from keychains, Denim Days, and safety jewelry cuffed to our wrists. Lounging at a rustic eatery, former Bachelorette Becca Kufrin posted a picture to advertise Flare, a company specializing in bracelets “that could save your life.” The bracelets, which received a special mention for Time’s “Best Inventions of 2020” award, can mimic emergency phone calls, text friends for help, blast the wearer’s GPS location, and (optionally, the website insists) dial 911. In the ad, Kufrin nestles her chin into her palm to show off the bracelet on her slim wrist. Beneath the photograph, in which she wears a ruffled, blush-colored top and matching makeup, her caption reads: “Raise your hand if you’ve ever had to come up with an exit strategy with your bestie before a first date in case it goes horribly wrong or you start to feel like maaayybbbee your date is a potential serial killer. We’ve ALL done it.” The elongated “maybe,”
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