Women Unite Take Back The Night
This flyer was used to advertise a nighttime feminist march held by the Boston Coalition to Take Back the Night. The event that the flyer is encouraging women to join took place on August 26, 1978, though the flyer was likely created sometime before this date. It was part of a larger grassroots movement Take back the Night (TBTN) which started as a part of the second wave feminism movement. The exact origin of TBTN is unclear; different groups holding their own TBTN protests credit disparate events in Brussels, Germany, San Francisco, and other places as their inspiration. The first event held by the Coalition to Take Back the Night was based on a similar event in London.
The bold typeface enhances a strong call for action to anyone who would come upon the flyer. The large symbol of a crescent moon clenched in a black fist evokes collective power dominating the night. The demands handwritten around the edges of the poster outline many feminist concerns that encompass the needs of many different groups of women. The inclusion of the Prostitute’s union of Massachusetts, the Combahee River Collective, Wages for Housework, and the advertisement of free childcare in the bottom corner all indicate a desire by the organizers of the march to reach women of all walks of life.
This flyer provides a glimpse at earlier feminist organizing that relied on physical means of spreading information about protests and events. A flyer posted in a public space has a chance of being seen by many different people, and many different kinds of people. From sex workers, to housewives to homeless women, anyone in a geographical area had a chance of seeing the flyer and attending the event. In the age of the internet, where organizing has a large digital component, it can be harder to reach people outside of certain spheres of influence. As digital platforms rely heavily on algorithms based on a user’s preferences, the chance that someone uninterested in feminist activism has a very low chance of seeing posts encouraging them to join a protest. However, with physical posters, they would have a higher chance of at least encountering the flyer. Digital spaces do have the advantage of reaching more people outside of geographical boundaries so there is a trade-off. A lot of protest advertising is done in a hybrid style, with physical flyers and digital posts to reach the largest number of people. This tactic is used by the organization Take Back the Night, the modern evolution of the movement that the flyer was a part of.
