Washington, DC — Approximately 250 protesters gathered beside the Washington Monument on the National Mall on October 8 as part of a National Day of Action event calling for accountability and justice for sexual assault survivors. The protest was just one of more than a dozen “I Am Jane Doe” demonstrations held across the country last week, “from the frat house to the White House,” as described by the Women’s March.
The National Day of Action was largely organized in response to allegations that seven Cornell University men, now known as the “Cornell 7,” gang raped a female student and advertised it in a fraternity Snapchat group. When the woman, known as Jane Doe, reported the incident two years ago, two of the men she accused were expelled, while the rest were required to write essays. Two years after the university’s response, Jane Doe’s lawyer filed another suit.
“We are in a moment of reckoning,” Dani Bensky, a vocal Jeffrey Epstein survivor and victims’ advocate, thundered into the microphone. She was one of six speakers who called for the passage of legislation to hold abusers accountable, including Alva Johnson, a 2016 campaign staffer who publicly accused Trump of sexual assault, and Claire Barnett, a JD candidate and president of Advocates Against Sexual Violence at Georgetown Law.
Protestors cheered them on and lifted signs reading “History Has Its Eyes on Us” and “Give Me Back My Girlhood, I Had It First.”
Among them was activist and curator Nadine Seiler, known for her work on the preservation of artworks in the Black Lives Matter memorial fence. She held a poster that with the words “I Am Jane Doe” spray-painted on one side and “rapists are not victims” on the other, a response to criticism from the Cornell 7 and their supporters that these men’s lives were disrupted when their photos and names were shared online as part of calls for justice. Seiler told Hyperallergic that she was deeply offended by these arguments.
“I am a victim of sexual assault, and so are many people. Our experiences are important and life-changing,” Seiler said, adding that the argument that “boys will be boys is old.”
In New York's Foley Square, protesters dressed up as characters from The Handmaid's Tale and carried signs calling out systemic violence. (photo Bonnie Biess/Getty Images for Women's March)
Days earlier, on October 5, hundreds of Cornell students staged a campus rally against the Ivy League school’s administration, expressing solidarity with Jane Doe and calling out what many view as a toxic and openly sexist fraternity culture.
When asked about the choice of location for the action, protest organizer Riley Reed told Hyperallergic that they wanted to situate survivors and advocates against the backdrop of recognizable DC emblems, with the Washington Monument obelisk behind them and the White House in sight.
“It’s a big statement [that] we will not accept sexual abusers in the White House, and we have one currently in the White House,” Reed said, referring to the multiple sexual assault allegations against President Trump.
“We want to hold the leaders at the top accountable for their actions, and this is a pretty poetic and powerful spot between the Monument and the White House, which are symbols of power,” Reed continued.
The protest lasted two hours with speeches, chants, and eventually music performed by two singers with guitars that called on Americans, in Johnson’s words, to “vote the rape regime out of office.”
As the group marched towards the White House and dispersed, Johnson’s words still hung in the air: “I am not afraid. They feed off fear, so we starve them with courage.”