“We stand with Anne-Marie Roy. We’ve been there too,” begins an open letter in support of Anne Marie-Roy signed by 129 women who have held positions in student unions across Canada. Roy, the president of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO), was recently the subject of a sexually aggressive Facebook chat.
Roy was sent an anonymous copy of a Facebook chat conversation in which five of her male peers, each holding different leadership positions on campus, discussed her campaign for president of the SFUO and described sexual acts they would like to commit against her. Despite receiving letters from the men in question telling her not to make the chat public, or to face legal repercussions, Roy went ahead and contacted the press and the University of Ottawa administration.
The open letter was released on March 8, 2014, eight days after the story ran in Fulcrum, the university’s English-language student newspaper. It details the rape culture the women student leaders feel is still prevalent on university campuses across Canada, and that is something that is not addressed often enough in a public setting. It emphasizes that rape culture can be reinforced through various subtle actions, whether it be through Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” or blaming women for rape, and not understanding how pervasive this issue is for women in our society.
Notable leaders from the University of Toronto to sign the letter include Camille Cendana-Patricio, UTSU vice-president, campus life 2006–2008; Danielle Sandhu, UTSU president 2011–2012; Sandy Hudson, UTSU president 2008–2010; and current UTSU executive director and Kelly Holloway, vice president, external, from 2002–2003 of the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union. No action has currently been taken against the five students who wrote the chat.
