This last Friday, April 2, Walk a Mile in Her Shoes began in Kauke Arch.† This event featured students, faculty and staff who volunteered to walk approximately a mile in women’s heels.† Some took this to the extreme and proudly displayed their pink, six-inch platform shoes while others claimed their half inch wedge heel counted.† Regardless of the height, this event was sponsored to raise awareness about rape, assault and gender violence.

The event was organized mainly by Ali Peters ’10 and Katie Harvuot ’10 with the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies curriculum committee, of which Nancy Grace is head of the department and co-sponsored by the Inter Greek Council which would explain the abundance of Greeks ready and willing to participate.† Peters and Harvuot are the only senior WGSS majors this year.† Around 150 Wooster students and staff showed up in order to show their support, or at the very least to see their president roll up fashionably late on his Vespa showing off his red high heels.† Other administrators joining him included Dean Holmes and Joe Kirk.

Whether or not people came to laugh at these men stumbling around in heels or to support awareness, the speakers at this event were moving and passionate about the cause.† After Harvuot and Peters’s introduction Mark Weaver, a professor of political science, spoke of the anger and frustration he felt at the fact that his female friends did not feel safe walking around Wooster’s campus just a few years ago. Alex Lans ’10 made it† clear how important women were in his life and how much respect they deserve. Harvuot began the walk by making it known that it was not a race, but that there might be a prize for whoever finished first.† The prize was a t-shirt.

Walk a Mile in her Shoes is an international organization founded by Frank Baird in 2001 in the United States.† Over the years the organization has grown and traveled to all 50 states, Camp Henry in South Korea, Nairobi in Kenya, Gold Coast in Australia, Leeds in the United Kingdom and all over Canada.

The Web site lists the organization’s mission statement which is to “Co-create a United Gender Movement, where men will be a part of the solution to ending sexualized violence.” Harvuot and Peters were able to successfully raise awareness to the 150 men and women who showed up to support the cause.

CORRECTION:

In last week’s feature on “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes,” we neglected to note that the event was sponsored by Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Program and co-sponsored by the J.C. Penny Corporation, who donated a number of shoes to the event.