In a world where women are considered to be an easy prey, here’s a girl who decided to raise her voice against her rapist.
Emma Sulkowicz, a senior who goes to the Columbia university, majoring in visual art, was raped on the first day of her sophomore year and has been struggling for justice ever since. The University has declined to accept her complaint as it believes that it wasn’t a rape, rather it was a mutual act.
Where rape itself is a horrifying act, making the victim struggle for justice describes the world’s attitude towards it. So not depending on anyone else, Emma started with her own movement towards it, she demands to not let the rapist harass her anymore- which he kept doing even after the incident. What she does to protest will surprise you.
After being disappointed by the university’s authorities and their resistance from expelling the culprit student, Emma decided to show them her burden of pain by carrying around the mattress on which she was raped. She does that to indicate that no matter where she goes or whatever she does, the pain, the horror or the burden of that incidence doesn’t leave her mind and the constant presence of that student in the same campus keeps her reminding of the act and makes her even more vulnerable.
She describes it as an act of awareness, she wants to convey her pain to the faculty and the fellow students by carrying a double than her size mattress around the premises to make everyone join the fight with her. She has already filed a federal title IX complaint against the university for mishandling the sexual assault case, but she lives in fear since her case was disregarded.
Women safety has always been a question of debate in this male dominated society and this happening in a state renowned university raises some serious questions about protection of the fairer sex.
