YARC (Youth Against Rape Culture) has a mission: to educate people about injustice toward women in Free State and in the general world and how to fix these problems.

Senior Becca Moran started the club last year because after having conversation with her friends about issues going on, she decided it was time to do something about it. Last year, YARC and the Young Feminist Club worked together on a project where they took pictures of people holding signs that said ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ and put them on the walls around the school to show that a feminist can be any race, gender, age, religion, any type of person.

“Feminism is truly for anyone who believes in equality of the sexes/genders,” Moran said.

The group met after school on Thursdays last year for an hour to an hour and a half to discuss current issues at Free State and on a broader scale. A lot of them involve college rapes, so they look at what happened and then break it down to see what was being done about it. They like to bring in different articles and poems they’ve seen on youtube and analyze them.

The members of the club believe that there’s a stereotype that rape situations against women are women’s fault- the way they dress, the way they look, and how they present themselves. What they are stressing is that rape is not a woman’s fault, but is something coming from another source, women should not be blamed.

“It makes me feel empowered to be a part of the movement,” senior Mary Krieger, who is involved in YARC, said.

With the help from this club and more support and coverage as a society, victims are starting to feel like they can come forward and students are learning what the word ‘consent’ means and knowing when pressure has gone too far.

“I just think it’s really good that we’re becoming more aware as a society about things that aren’t right,” Moran said. “For so long it’s been accepted that women are the submissive gender.”

The members of YARC believe that although there has been good coverage, there’s a lot of gray area, especially when alcohol and drugs are involved. That is why they want to talk to students at Free State, particularly freshman health classes, about how to be safe when dealing with situations that might involve alcohol/drugs or a party.

“People need to know that it’s okay not to be cool with everything, and to have boundaries and say you don’t want to do something. People shouldn’t feel like they have to do something they don’t want to do,” Moran said.