Cambridge students march to ‘Reclaim the Night’

CN: mentions of sexual and gendered violence 

Last night (11/03), a group of female-identifying and non-binary students took to the streets of Cambridge to protest sexual violence as part of the “Reclaim the Night” march, run by the Women’s Campaign. Their chants and slogans are dotted throughout this piece.

“Hey hey, ho ho, sexual violence has to go”

With about 150 people in attendance, the march began in the Anglia Ruskin courtyard across Parker’s Piece. Quick speeches about the route and safety measures were made before the Presidents of both the Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin Student Unions spoke to attendees.

Anjum Nahar, the current Cambridge SU Postgraduate President, argued that “there needs to be a cultural change and how we achieve that is an immense question. There are small things we can do like consent workshops, but we need to do so much more under that as well.”

Cavya Antony, President of the Anglia Ruskin Students’ Union, also focused on the march’s importance and the “right to safety at night,” drawing on her own experiences in India. “We will not go quietly into the night,” she stressed.

“Say it once, say it again, NO EXCUSE FOR VIOLENT MEN!”

The march route went through the Grafton Centre, across Christ’s Pieces, and crossed King’s Parade. Chants from the crowd echoed across popular Cambridge sights, with some attendees using megaphones to make sure that they were heard. Residents peered down from windows and filmed the procession.

The march made its way down King’s Parade

Despite the odd heckling, the protest received considerable support from the general public. Cars beeped their horns in support and cyclists dinged their bells in time with the chants as they cycled by. As the “Reclaim the Night” protesters made their way through central Cambridge, women and young girls started to join the procession, with some even wheeling their bikes alongside the crowd so that they could join in.

“Whatever we wear, wherever we go, does not change that no means no!”

At the end of the march, supporters gathered in Great St Mary’s to attend the vigil in memory of victims of gendered violence, such as Sarah Everard.

Supporters gathered at Great St Mary’s for the vigil

Here, people shared stories, extracts from feminist literature as well as their own spoken word poetry to discuss the impacts of violence against women and non-binary people. The vigil then ended with a moment of silence for all the lives affected by or taken by male violence.

Reclaim the Night in a wider context

“Reclaim the Night” is not a new concept. First established in the 1970s in the wake of the Yorkshire Ripper attacks on sex workers based in Leeds, women took to the streets to protest the police’s response. Northern women were told to simply not go out at night. In 1997, feminists and women’s groups gathered at night in Leeds to emphasise their entitlement to the streets, to leave their house without a male chaperone and to reclaim the night.

Since then, marches have taken place in Australia, India, the USA, and across the UK (including Cambridge). As time passed by, the purpose of these marches expanded from what the women in Leeds were initially protesting to include speaking out against street harassment, victim-blaming, and gendered violence more generally.

One of the signs at the “Reclaim the Night” march in Cambridge

Modern marches, such as Cambridge’s, also take a more intersectional approach to protesting sexual violence by recognising that the ways in which people embody and experience these forms of violence vary immensely depending on race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, disability and more.

If you would like to find out more about “Reclaim the Night,” you can visit the Cambridge Student’s Union page or contact the SU Women’s Campaign for more information. 

All images are the author’s own.

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