A step in the right direction
<p>Matthew Sebby, the student union manager at North Idaho College, gingerly steps over an obstacle while wearing high heels Wednesday during an educational event hosted by the North Idaho Violence Prevention Center. Men and women traversed the course while wearing heels and reading various domestic violence scenarios along the way.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - They walked the walk.
Men on the North Idaho College campus slipped into pairs of women's high heels on Wednesday, and then took a spin on the sidewalk as part of a domestic and dating violence awareness event.
Hosted by the North Idaho Violence Prevention Center and the college, the "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes" event challenged NIC students and faculty to learn about relationship violence, and empathize with its victims.
"Some people don't understand why a person doesn't leave," said Antonia Bancroft, the violence prevention center's advocate assigned to NIC.
Bancroft hopes participants walk away from the event - in their own shoes - with a better understanding and awareness of what a victim of sexualized violence goes through.
The men, and some women, who participated over a four-hour period put on ladies' spike heels, and then tottered through the course, stepping up, down and over things. They had to bend and pick up a pen, and sit on a folding chair and cross their legs without injuring themselves or others.
"I wouldn't ask them to do anything I couldn't do," Bancroft said.
Along the way the walkers stopped to read part of a nameless victim's story representing a common scenario in dating violence among you adults.
"With each obstacle, the story escalates," Bancroft said.
People related to the story about a dating relationship in which one of the young partners goes from jealous to controlling to violent, Bancroft said., and that they know someone going through the same thing.
At the end of the obstacle course, the high-heeled walkers were asked to choose one of several possible endings to the story.
Matthew Sebby, manager of NIC's SUB, was disheartened by the final chapter he chose - the victim, after being raped by her boyfriend, contacted law enforcement rather than friends, family or a crisis hotline.
"I was hoping to get a positive result because I chose what seemed to be the right thing to do," Sebby said.
The scenario ended with the police arresting the boyfriend that night. He got out the next day, then violated a no-contact order to harass and stalk the victim. He eventually broke into the victim's home one night and attacked her.
"There are so many blocks in the system. It's difficult to be a victim," Sebby said.
For NIC student James Otten, putting on the high heels was a way to support victims of a type of crime he has strong feelings about.
"I was raised by a mom who was a rape victim, and every girl but one that I've ever gone out with was raped or molested," Otten said.
He was recently dismayed to learn of a survey of college students in which 75 percent of the males reported they would force sex on a woman if there were no consequences, or they thought they wouldn't get caught.
Otten believes that kind of thinking is connected to societal trends that promote the exploitation and self-degradation of women - in music, magazines and on billboards.
Regarding the NIC event, Otten said, "Any bit of education is a step in the right direction."