Brave Men in Women’s Heels

by Xinpei Yu

On March 28th, a total of 300 people assembled at the FSU Clock Tower at 7 p.m., joining the “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes Men's March”, hosted by GREEK COUNCIL and NRHH. Frostburg faculty, staff, and students as well as members from the local community greeted and embraced each other with purple ribbons, as a symbol against domestic violence.

The "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes" encourages men to literally walk a mile in women heels in order to feel the hardship as women. Though finding hard to walk, many brave men participated by stepping in women’s high heels voluntarily as a pledge against domestic violence.

Tony Mancuso, Vice President of Greek Life, and Erick Humberto Garcia, Treasurer and Secretary of the National Residence Hall Honorary, have prepared this event for nearly a month. As a program done during Women's History Month, the event aims to show the appreciation to women and unite the Frostburg community. “As we look at the image of the campus, we saw a lot of negative things.” Said Tony, “we want to unite the campus and educate the university through the walk against domestic violence.”

Soon after a brief speech, the student organizers invite the advisors from the Residence Hall Association and Greek Life to present the total of $1264.29 donation to the representative from the DOVE center. The event raised this money through various donations from the students and faculty, as well as the local community such as Fat Boy’s Pizza, Ci Ci’s Pizza, and Grinders Pizza.

Leading by Tony and Erick, attendances set off their one-mile journey around the FSU campus in a random line. Starting from the clock tower, the ranks walk up to the Brandy’s house, get around along the Simpson Hall and Guild, pass through Campton, march down towards the Chesapeake, go back to the lawn in front of the Dunkle Hall, turn around the library and reach the fields behind the PE Center.

Brittany Stonestreet, a junior Music Education major in FSU, along with her friend from the community, attends this event for the first time as an RA. “It raises the awareness that it actually does happen, so people are more aware of it.” She said, “So it tends to happen less because people who support it are against the cause of domestic violence.”

All the RAs and RDs like Brittany are trained about how to talk to people about issues like this and how to deal with interpersonal conflicts, according to Dana Severance, Director of Housing. “I do think that domestic violence can affect students in relationships.” He further explains the definition of domestic violence, “For me, domestic violence means violence between people who are in a relationship, people who are partners together, not only at home.” He believes that relationship violence does happen among college students. It seems rare, probably because people don’t want to talk about it. It probably happens more than we hear, because people are embarrassed or they don’t want people to get involved.

Similar to the next-week campaign “Enough is Enough”, whose goal is to end violence in general, “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes Men's March” values awareness and focuses pacifically on the relationship. It reminds people of such a thing, so that people will take more care of each other. They tend to keep the issue to themselves whenever come across such a report and make sure that those people can get help. Besides, any men who are walking in this walk would be more aware of how they should behave in their relationships.

For those people who are struggling through domestic violence, there are various organizations on as well as off campus that they can turn to for help. First of all, go to university police if it is very serious. Someone feels that they are victim of violence or threatened by the other person from a break-up relationship. Also, the counseling center can always be found helpful and the DOVE Center, a recovery center for battered and abused women, is recommended.