Reclaim. Rejoice.

Tonight was Reclaim the Night in Cambridge, the city that I live for university (no I don't go to Cambridge University before you wonder.) Over 100 women grouped together and met at Reality Checkpoint (a lamppost in the middle of Parker's Piece, a park in Cambridge) and there was a short speech from our very own Sammi (feminist president) and Gabbi (Academic Officer at ARU) along with a woman from CUSU (Cambridge University Student Union) and a trustee from the CRCC (Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre). We then proceeded to march, banners and all, through Cambridge city centre chanting all the way, ranging from '2, 4, 6, 8, stop the violence, stop the hate!' to 'WHATEVER WE WEAR, WHEREVER WE GO, YES MEANS YES AND NO MEANS NO!'. It's such an emotional event for me and so many of the other women who were all there to raise awareness and to Reclaim the Night as their own. there was also a solidarity march for men to group with us once we reached the city centre and this was an awesome moment; there were partners, friends, children, colleagues, classmates all there to support us in our march. We then continued from the City Centre to Kings College Chapel where a vigil was held and it was honestly one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed. There was a women's choir, poetry, speeches and we all had a paper tag to hang on a tree with a personal message about the night on. It was perfect and I plan to do everything I can to keep the ARU feminist society going once our pres Sammi leaves (which will be a really sad day).

I know this post isn't written well, isn't grammatically correct and there's punctuation in places there probably shouldn't be or lacking where it should. To be quite honest I'm not even going to change it, too much are we confined to that we have to live within the rules and control of what is 'the norm' and what is 'allowed' by the patriarchy. We need to rise and claim what is ours and make the streets of our hometowns a safer place to be.

Much Love,

Lauren x