Through speaking engagements, conferences, radio shows, community meetings, and other public events, rape crisis centers have attempted to reach people with a feminist perspective on the issue of violence against women. The feedback from these events is positive but constitutes only piecemeal response - we have to mentally add up audiences to see just how many people we have reached. And, while our efforts have generated more sensitivity and understanding towards women who have been raped, are we also providing channels for women to deal with their rage?

A march is one way that support for an issue can be assessed. Marches can bring together many women to voice protest, propose concrete solutions, provide each other with morale-building support, and gain publicity. Marches held recently in cities like Austin, Texas; Hart ford, Connecticut; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania show that the silence around rape has clearly ended. Anger is taking its place as women insist - loudly and publicly - that something be done about violence against women. (At the same time, women are also seeking to create some of our own solutions.)

Some of the marches have been touched off by a particular rallying point such as a series of "unresolved" rapes, or sexist decision by judges or the courts. Others are a culmination of on-going organizing by local anti- rape groups. A coalition of anti-rape groups in New York City has been marching through Central Park on a night in August for the past several years.

All of the recent marches have been well- attended and well-publicized. Over the past year, marches to protest rape have also taken place in England, Germany, Italy and Australia, some with thousands of participants. Media coverage has been excellent in all cases, this being a prime objective of the organizers of the marches. A march staged by Los Angeles WAVAW and the Feminist Studio Workshop recently provided the media with a' "visual statement" as well as a march. Participants dressed up as roosters to portray record company executives as strutting cocks, sure of their profits as they bring out their newest violent album, while women confronted them with signs saying, "This is a crime against women."

In Hartford, Conn., Neighborhood Women Against Rape, a new group, held a well-publicized march with hundreds of women last fall. NWAR publishes a monthly "Rape Alert" - a list describing men known to have committed rape - and the current list was read at the march. Marchers also tied red banners on street signs - one for every rape known to have occurred on each street through which the marchers passed. A few weeks after the march, NWAR staged a protest aimed at "violence against women" in advertising. Heublein, makers of Black Velvet whiskey, had its stockholders meeting interrupted by women protesting Black Velvet ads which display women as vulnerable sex objects. Several stockholders not involved in the protest expressed their support for the demonstrators.

A letter from Save Our Selves, a recently formed community organization in Pittsburgh, Pa., describes the march which was their most recent action.

"SOS initiated a coalition of three anti-violence against women groups which organized a highly England, Germany, Italy and Australia, some with thousands of participants. Media coverage has been excellent in all cases, this being a prime objective of the organizers of the marches. A march staged by Los Angeles WAVAW and the Feminist Studio Workshop recently provided the media with a' "visual statement" as well as a march. Participants dressed up as roosters to portray record company executives as strutting cocks, sure of their profits as they bring out their newest violent album, while women confronted them with signs saying, "This is a crime against women."

Within the past approximately six months, SOS has held a city- wide conference on violence against women in addition to helping mobilize people for the march. SOS's next campaign is a proposal to set up "safe houses" on individual blocks to which women in trouble could go for temporary shelter and help in dealing with the problem.

Increasingly, the significance of our marches will depend on our demands. Even with thousands of women marching through the streets, our determination and anger, not our objectives, are mainly conveyed. For now, it is important to know how much support we are generating; it is important to be moving, to be visible, and to be strong. Now is also the time, however, for feminists to begin to develop proposals toward the elimination of rape solutions, long-range and short-range, that future marchers will rally behind.

continued...Part II