In the spirit of promoting self-governance on 10/10, Grinnell’s student-run all-day tradition of collective partying, Students for Reproductive Justice (SRJ) tabled in front of Mears Cottage and visited 10/10’s off campus day festivities for the first time, promoting safe sex and consent as an additional form of harm reduction. The organization’s initiative was spearheaded by co-founders Annie Wilber and Sasha Fine, and secretary Quinn Wright, all `27, who said they believed that today was an important day to promote safe sex and consent.
“10/10 is a hot spot for parties and that kind of [sexual] behavior, which can come with risks like not full consent,” Fine said. “Targeting that messaging on more potentially harmful days is really important.”
SRJ is a new club as of last year and a chapter of Planned Parenthood’s Generation Action club initiative. To Fine, SRJ is more than just a club. “[Iowa] is an abortion hostile state and just a reproductive justice hostile state, so it’s really important to me because I’m passionate about providing people an opportunity to get involved.”
“Reproductive justice, specifically abortion, is an issue that I care about, and it’s one that I feel like a majority of Americans support,” Wright said. “Being able to push policy and help a group that advocates for those resources is important to me, and I think [this club] provides a really good opportunity to do so on a smaller scale.”
Fine said that tabling is a great way to spread information regarding safe sex and consent.
“We have three volunteers during every hour that actually walk into the parities and try and get people there to put on stickers that have their consent pledges on them,” Wilber said.“It’s more of an active thing rather than expecting people to come up to us so that we can cover as many people as possible.”
Wright said that on these pledge stickers, party-goers write something that they will pledge to do related to consent. Wilber said,“I feel like everyone is very receptive to the stickers, because I think this is something people talk about in relation to 10/10, but never something that’s been acted upon. We’re happy we can be the ones to do it.”
SRJ had a trivial wheel during tabling. Depending on the number that you landed upon, you would get asked a question about safe sex and resources on and off campus, such as what Planned Parenthood does. As well as this, various resources decorated the table. “We’re giving away resources, drink covers, biodegradable straws and things like that to make 10/10 an overall safer experience for people,” said Wright. There were also contraceptive products, including emergency contraceptives, menstrual products, stickers and other resources promoting sexual reproductive justice.
“This is just one of the many activities we’ll be doing throughout the school year to promote reproductive justice both on and off campus. We chose to do 10/10 because it’s a day of festivities that represents Grinnell,” said club member, Ella Bardzilowski `28.
