On Jan. 20 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., students — both male and female — are encouraged to wear whatever they want and join the SlutWalk march around campus, starting at the Free Speech Lawn.

The march is being held for the first time at FAU by the College Democrat’s Women’s Caucus.

“Don’t let the name turn you off, it’s more than that,” Sophie Siegel, the caucus chair, wrote in an email. “The movement is to prevent rape culture and promote love. It will bring everybody together for a common goal.”

Celebrity Amber Rose brought awareness to the movement in October 2015 by leading a march through Los Angeles. So far, there have been campaigns in over 200 countries “fighting against sexual injustice, victim blaming, and derogatory labeling,” according to the SlutWalk site.  

The walk was organized after a Toronto police officer told a crowd of college women that, “Women shouldn’t dress like ‘sluts’ if they don’t want to be sexually assaulted,” according to Rose’s SlutWalk website.

Siegel wants the event to facilitate a more inclusive environment for the campus.

“The goal of the FAU SlutWalk is uniting together to end rape culture and promote consent, self love and positivity for all,” Siegel wrote. “Working together to end rape culture and to help the survivors is something incredibly important. Self love and positivity is super important and a key factor of uniting everyone together at this event as well as ending rape culture.”

“Sometimes the whole idea of ‘it was what they were wearing’ is what can provoke an event involving sexual assault, which isn’t ok. What you wear/say/do etc. does not promote consent,” said Siegel.

Siegel stressed that this is not a protest and urged those who wish to attend to not bring signs or clothes with negative messages, as the goal of the walk is to promote self-love and positivity. That includes negative political messages.

“[The walk] isn’t anti-election or anti-Trump,” Siegel said. “It is for everybody. It’s a unifying thing and not a negative thing, this walk should be a very positive event.”

Tucker Berardi is the features editor of the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @tucker_berardi.