The Daily Gamecock

Feminists ‘Die-In’ on Pickens

	<p>Die-In participants lay down on the Pickens Street Bridge on Monday to raise awareness of domestic violence.</p>
Die-In participants lay down on the Pickens Street Bridge on Monday to raise awareness of domestic violence.

Groups lays down on bridge to bring awareness to cause

Students crossing the Pickens Street Bridge on the way to class between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. yesterday were forced to think about an issue that usually does not come to mind during a class change: domestic violence.

The Feminists Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA) had its annual Die-In to honor Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Members of the organization passed out fliers and laid down on the bridge to bring attention to facts about sexual assaults, rape and honor killing.

“We had people lie down on the sidewalk to serve as a physical representation of people who have died because of domestic violence, and we had them hold posters with facts about domestic violence in the hopes that they would stop and see what’s going on,” said Christiana Keinath, a first-year biology student and member of FMLA.

South Carolina had the nation’s highest rate of women murdered by men — 2.54 per 100,000 — based on 2011 data reported to the Violence Policy Center.

“We like to focus a lot of statistics about college-age students because that’s where it applies to us and stuff that hits home,” said Tori Moore, president of Forward, the Progressive Student Alliance. Forward is the umbrella group over FMLA.

One of the posters was dedicated to former USC professor Jennifer Wilson, who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend two years ago. Moore said they hold the event in honor of Wilson and other similar cases.

“It is in our own backyard,” Moore said. “A lot of people don’t know the facts or the statistics or think it will never happen to them. So we like to come out here and show that it can happen to anyone and that there [are] outlets to find help and that people aren’t alone.

“It’s one of the major awareness things, and it’s kind of hard to miss. You have to come face-to-face with a lot of the statistics because we’re in the way. And that’s why I like [it], because we can make people see that it’s not just something they can brush off.”

In addition to highlighting the issue of domestic violence, FMLA also hoped to be a voice for people who have been affected by the problem.

“I think it’s important because it relates to an issue that either people have not experienced, or if they have experienced [it], they’re not necessarily likely to share with the public what happened to them,” Keinath said.

Some of the participants said they volunteered to help with the event because of the creativity of the idea.

“I wanted to do something that would make people pay attention to the issues that people are dealing with and because it seemed like a more creative way to spread the word than just ordinary things, like fliers,” Keinath said.

Participants also said they hope that bystanders who noticed the Die-In were able to take something away from the event.

“I really hope that we inspired some people to either look into the issue more or maybe take up some of the volunteer opportunities on our fliers,” Keinath said. “But in a more general sense, I hope that we brought the issue of domestic violence into the forefront of their conscience.”


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