An estimated 4,000 people turned out to march against sexual violence and the often shame-filled aftermath of these crimes at the SlutWalk NYC on Saturday. The rally that followed was an emotional and ardent plea for issues like rape, gender identity, and police brutality to be recognized and addressed. On the day after the demonstration, Alison Turkos, one of the event’s many organizers, spoke with us about some of the rally's highlights, as well as issues that go along with putting the word ‘Slut’ right in the title.

How did the march go? It went absolutely, incredibly well.

This is the first time SlutWalk is in New York City, and it comes at a time when this kind of violence in the city is forefront on our minds, although that couldn’t have been foreseen. So why did you bring this rally to New York? What happened was there was a woman who was organizing it for New York, and she had to back out—and we later found out that it was due to the fact that she was pregnant and was having a child. So it was for fantastic reasons. I found out about it through Facebook and I’m very involved in feminist organizing and feminist activism and advocacy here in the city.

There was a meeting held in the last week of June right before the July Fourth weekend, and I would say there were maybe 15 to 20 of us in the Puck Building on Lafayette and Houston. And we basically decided that this needed to happen. It was before some of the Park Slope [attacks] had happened and right in the beginnings of the DSK proceedings as well as the Mata and Moreno case, and it was just one of those things. We saw that SlutWalks had been happening all over the country as well as the world. We are New York City and we kind of feel like, not that we make a statement for the world, but we are definitely a huge place and we wanted it to happen here. So it was kind of like SlutWalk was brought here by multiple people and multiple organizations.

You said you found out about it on Facebook, when did you become involved as an organizer? From the first meeting. The very first meeting, like I said, was the last Thursday in June and I moved to New York City just over a year ago to become more involved in the feminist community through activism and advocacy and community organizing here. That is the main reason that brought me to New York, because the feminist community is so vast here and I really wanted to do more in that community and world. I work at a women’s reproductive and health non-profit. I’m a clinic escort as well, there’s a lot in my feminist web, so I happened to either get invited or saw it on someone’s Facebook wall or it was on my news feed somehow.

I showed up with my notebook and my pen and I was taking notes and I never really thought I’d be involved and be an organizer. Then I realized anyone who showed up yesterday was an organizer. There’s no such thing as a volunteer or a participant or a marcher. We are all organizers of this movement, we are all organizers of the feminist movement, we’re all organizers of SlutWalk. If you march with a sign, if you marched yesterday, if you listen to those speakers, you are an organizer of this new SlutWalk movement. As the new face of the feminist movement you are telling people that feminism still exists, that feminism is still here.

There has been some outcry about using the word slut in the title. What is your response to that? I can’t speak for SlutWalk NYC or the organizers of the event, I can only speak for myself on that, but some people look at it, and I’ve heard some organizers say, that potentially it’s a cry for help—cry for help might be the wrong word—but it’s a cry for inclusion. Saying that we want to be included, this is something we feel uncomfortable with, help us to feel more comfortable. And I think that’s it and I think that yesterday our emcees, [Kimberlynn Acevedo, Suzy Exposito, Jaime Barak, Anoushka Ratnarajah] spoke to those and spoke of both letters from the Black Womens Blueprint and AFFIRM, as well as some other letters that were written or some articles that were written. I think moving forward we really plan to sit at a table and sit across from these organizations and sit across from these people and really speak to those topics.

The organizers of SlutWalk NYC, which we are, had a meeting on Thursday and we discussed the topic of a name change and we've kind of been continuing to discuss the topic of a name change. We identify ourselves as the organizers of SlutWalk NYC. We look at ourselves as a coalition and a collective, and figuring out exactly what “category” we fit into and figuring out what we are exactly—we’re a baby. We’ve only been doing this for three months and in three months look at what we were able to accomplish and however, yes, we may have had our downfalls, I still think that it was a success yesterday.

Signs are an important part of SlutWalk, were there any particularly memorable ones yesterday? Sure, I mean memorable from start to finish. My day started at 4:30 a.m. when I woke up and I headed to certain establishments to purchase poster boards. It was memorable for me when there were people, marchers, participants, and organizers who showed up, and I wandered through the crowd and said, “Our sign making party has began.” I personally went out and used my own funds and bought poster board and markers. Just because you’re a student or maybe you couldn’t afford to buy poster board, whatever the reason, that doesn’t mean you shouldn't be able to hold a sign that says what you want to say. That was really memorable for me because people were really fantastic and really excited about that.

I was literally brought to tears, and you can ask any organizer this, I was literally brought to tears three or four times yesterday because —I’m even brought to tears right now—this is something that I believe in so wholeheartedly, and I worked on so hard, as has every single organizer and every single feminist activist in this city and in the SlutWalk movement. And to see it come to fruition and to see people be there and say this is not the end. October first is not the end it’s just the beginning. We will continue, and continue, and continue in New York City and everywhere else in the nation, as well as worldwide. So that was really great.

For more information, visit the SlutWalk NYC website