The Value of Raising Awareness of Real World Violence Against Women With a Virtual Dance Party (Guest Post)

Last week's One Billion Rising event in Second Life caused a fair amount of controversy, mainly because the dance party, an official part of a world-wide awareness-raising collective dance event against rape and other violence against women, seemed by many to be an ineffective response to such a deep and serious issue. Saffia Widdershins of the excellent SL blog Prim Perfect offers her answer as one of the event's lead organizers:

This event was planned and held within five weeks. The people behind it (and there were over a hundred and thirty people involved in the event) were experienced event organizers in Second Life (events including Second Life Birthdays, Relay for Life etc etc). This was short notice for a wholly new event, but a blog was set up, a Facebook page and a Twitter stream. It received publicity through the real world OBR event as well - and even featured on the Guardian newspaper's live blog of One Billion Rising!

There were four sims open for twenty-four hours, with people coming and going all day long. On average, I'd say there were 120 people at the event at any one time - attendance might have dropped to 80 at some points, and rose to nearly 200 at peak times - at which point the sims were really groaning. I would suspect that well over a thousand people visited the event in the course of the day - and more watched on Livestream - it was broadcast for the whole 24 hours.

And we got nearly five thousand hits on the OBR blog on the day itself - so maybe I'm being conservative with visitor numbers.

Many bloggers gave excellent pre-coverage - including Inara Pey and Daniel Voyager. Obviously, Honour McMillan and I did - we were among the organizers.

We held a press day to which many bloggers were invited - and through our blogs, we invited more people to apply for a press pass - which several did. Those who came were able to talk to organizers about the event and its aims (this was also discussed on the One Billion Rising blog, so the information was available). Some press people received personal invites to the press day.

I would say that - because of the involvement of the Art and Music Communities, word did travel wider. In addition, the 24 sponsors - many of them large commercial enterprises in Second Life, like KittyCats and the Heart Garden Center, displayed materials at their stores. The fact that you hadn't heard about it, Archangel, is probably a reflection on the fact that Second Life is so large and diverse that it is extremely difficult to get the word out to everyone in a short space of time. That's an ongoing problem for anyone who wants to organize anything in Second Life.

This was not an event about raising money - it was about raising awareness of the issue. With greater awareness, we plan to offer opportunities for people to do more and to become involved, if they wish. That is a discussion that is only just starting.

People who did want to give money were told where they could find organisations who would welcome donations, but raising money was not our aim. People who wanted to help were welcomed.

We didn't set out to solve the problem of violence against women, nor to analyse the root causes. There were no speeches - but there was information available - both details of organisations and info sheets about the issues - what you can do if you find yourself in a violent situation, advice about anger management, what you can do if you suspect someone you know is being abused. Personally, I would like to see one result of this event to be to make such information more widely available. That's a discussion that will be had over the coming weeks, I am sure. I've already started discussing issues arising on my blog.

I don't think that every event in Second Life or the real world should be about fund-raising. Even with Relay for Life, which raises huge sums in Second Life, I think the awareness-raising and the support for survivors and caregivers is just as important - if not so headline-grabbing.

Was this event an exercise in feel-good do-nothingness? I don't think so. I think it brought together a great many people to learn about - or learn more about - a very important issue, and as a component in a global event. Some people, I know, have raised concerns about the manner of the event feeling that dancing was a hopelessly inadequate or even inappropriate response to this issue, but to balance that, I know that - like other organizers - I had the privilege of talking to people for whom this had been a very affirming experience - sometimes because of dreadful experiences in their own lives. I also spoke to many more people who said that through the event and through the information that the global event disseminated, they learned more about the whole issue. And the people who have spoken out against the event itself have played an invaluable role in keeping the issue – the important thing – in the forefront of people’s minds.

I suspect that in an area like this, there is no simple right path. One does what one can, accepting that nothing will ever be right for everyone but one should never let the perfect be the enemy of the possible.

Saffia is an editor at Prim Perfect. Follow her on Twitter here.

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Comments

[theo]

so lets dance for Tibet, cancer, hunger, Syria, pedophilia, the plastic soup in the ocean, childlabour, guncontol, terrorisme, co2 emmision, de-forrestation etc....??

[Tankgirl]

Hugs for Saffia. Raisong awareness is huge. Thanks

[Saffia Widdershins]

Theo - let's dance, leaflet, lobby our elected representatives, write songs, sing songs, hang out prayer flags, lie down in the streets, stand naked but for sheets, walk, march, run ... and do whatever it takes non-violently to make sure what we believe in is heard.

[Sandy Sandalwood]

theo's snide remark above is derogatory, disparaging and certainly churlish. His list includes many causes of merit, but what is the point of being disrespectful of women who have found the energy to work on behalf of solutions for such an enormous international problem?

I truly appreciate the work of Saffia and the hundreds of others in Second Life who have used this means to call on us to try to find ways to make a better place for women everywhere.

[Pep]

I think it is entirely appropriate for women to raise awareness of violence against them by shaking their pretty little tushes in public.

Pep (suggests holding anti-alcohol abuse events in bars might, by the same argument, also be a good idea)

[ZZ Bottom]

What seems childest in countries thatr ensure some freedom, can be a true act of courage that will endager the lives of the oens involved in others!
See Somalia and other!
And yes, if we dance for all those problems, theo's, World would not get worse cause of that!

[Cat Boccaccio]

It was heartening to see the number of men who turned up at the OBR sims and danced and otherwise showed their support, as opposed to those, like theo and Pep, who prefer to mock and belittle the efforts of the women who took part.

I found the event energizing and encouraging, and it is easy to feel hopeless. Thank you again to all the organizers.

[Pep]

Erm, Cat, how do you know they were men, as opposed to women who use male avatars because they feel weak and feeble and threatened as female avatars?

Pep (On the same basis, how do you know that ALL the attendees weren't predatorial men?)

PS Who visited because they thought the event would be full of single women . . .

[JMB]

@ Pep. Thank you for your unhelpful and absurd comment.

[Cat Boccaccio]

Erm, Pep, the event was well-attended by men in “real life” also but I appreciate your enlightening comments. (Gender switching -- wow, that happens in SL?) You think maybe OBR SL was full predators and impostors? Were you there by any chance? Because there’s nothing like awareness of violence against women to get a girl horny for a misogynist old coot.

[Archangel Mortenwold]

I understand your point of view and appreciate your clarification, but really, I question just how effective the event was overall. You said your goal was to raise awareness, but at best you reached maybe a few thousand people, many of whom are already well aware of violence against women and children as a matter of having been at the receiving end of it. How many people who don't understand the scope of the problem did you manage to educate?

And while it's all well and good to raise awareness of the problem, it's only part of the equation. Without even starting a discussion of possible solutions, what's the point? "Okay," someone might ask, "so a billion women and kids suffer daily violence including rape. What can I do about it?"

And the person asking the question isn't necessarily being flippant. He or she very likely really wants to know. If you can't or won't supply satisfactory answers to such questions, then yes, one can indeed question the effectiveness of the event. I understand a lot of people put in a great deal of effort to build stages and plan the event, but with so little thought apparently having gone into even deciding exactly what you hoped to accomplish, it's only natural that a lot of people — especially those of us who've experienced daily violence in our lives to one degree or another — might not appreciate the end result.

I'm not saying this to be harsh. I'm saying this because I do want you to succeed for the next time you put on an event in SL, because as a survivor of violence myself this is an issue I feel very strongly about and I would like you to learn from this event so that the next one achieves even more and better than this last one.

[Archangel Mortenwold]

I'll also defend Theo's comment. What exactly does dancing, in either a virtual or real-life setting, actually accomplish? What do the activities named by Saffia actually accomplish? Given that social, political, and religious changes — the really big ones — don't take place without massive political and social activism, from running for public office and setting policies to helping victims connect with organizations that can remove them from violent environments and counsel them in the aftermath, help them get their lives back, what Saffia listed just hasn't gotten very much done that's of any real substance.

And that's legitimate criticism, if not exactly gentle. For example, signing petitions is a good way to register the opinions of those signing them, but if the politicians to whom those petitions are directed ignore them, then what's the next step? How does one get recalcitrant public servants to do their jobs? And if nothing can be done to make them do their jobs, then isn't it incumbent on outraged citizens to run for public office themselves, and take direct political action?

And what of protests? If they're not massive enough to the point that private and governmental business cannot proceed unless leaders address the concerns of the people involved, then even those are exercises in futility. At the very least, protests and strikes should be able to inspire others to take decisive, direct action.

That, I suspect, is the point of Theo's comment, and I can agree with its intent even if how he expressed his views aren't necessarily friendly. But then, matters of socio-political import aren't about finding ways to hold hands and get along nicely; they're about achieving the goals of the people involved, and very often people need to get nasty. It's not pretty, but it's often a lot more effective than false civility.

[theo]

I am sorry if I have offended somebody.
Not my goal.Not my style.
To be clear: I absolutly reject any violence against women.
(as I reject any violence against anything alive).
But I fail to see why dancing should make any difference to the problem .

If there are people who are not aware of violence against women then O N L Y education will help.
Its education, education, education, and education.
Both boys and girls! and worldwide.
we should think about only giving our votes to politics that provides our youth with education about how to be truely human.

So don't stop dancing, do it for the fun (its truely human).

But start thinking who you vote for nex time and educate people around you who are not aware of this huge and increasing problem of violence in all its forms.

[theo]

thank you Archangel Mortenwold for your in depth comments. I could not have it said better.

[Buttercup Thursday]

So women, and some men, gathered in SL to raise awareness about global violence against women. What is the harm, what is the controversy? This false-sounding concern about the motives and benefits of OBR are petty and meaningless. I can’t even imagine what is behind the effort spent in denigrating the event, and in being negative and critical about something so intrinsically important and well-intended, and which many women have explicitly said has been inspiring and uplifting. Of course there is more to be done. Who said otherwise?