Back in June, we spoke with the leaders of the New York chapter of Grlcvlt, the national feminist secret society that has been campaigning to recall Judge Aaron Persky since he sentenced Brock Turner, the Stanford rapist, to a mere six months in jail. The semi-secret group — they have a private Facebook group, which is invite-only and is listed under changing monikers — puts on events and fundraisers to galvanize support and raise money to unseat Persky.
And hush-hush as they may be, they’re certainly not lacking in support: the local NYC chapter has more than 3,000 members, and 1.4k people RSVP’d on Facebook to an event they held at Holyrad Studio on June 15.
Now, Grlcvlt is taking it a step further, and partnering with the official Campaign to Recall Judge Aaron Persky. Their first collaboration is a fundraiser, “Fuck Rape Culture: A Benefit to Unseat Judge Aaron Persky” that will take place at Baby’s All Right on Aug. 1. It’s part fundraiser, part party to rock the patriarchy into submission.
“Rape culture is problematic, rape culture is being formed and maintained by the patriarchy,” group leader and Bed-Stuy resident Remy Holwick told us in June. “And [Judge Aaron Persky] is an instrument of the patriarchy that we can unseat.”
The $25 admission will go directly to the campaign, an all-volunteer group based in San Francisco that is hoping to raise a million dollars to successfully recall the judge—as you can see, they need every dollar they can get. And that’s just the financial part; they also need to collect 80,000 signatures of registered voters in Santa Clara, California before November 17, 2017, when the official recall election would take place.
The Baby’s All Right event will rock the patriarchy too, as we mentioned, with music by Madame Gandhi (the electronic solo project from the former drummer for M.I.A.), Brooklyn-based, sibling-led rock band The Skins, the eclectic rock outfit the New Tarot and the alt-pop act Edith Pop. The chair of the campaign, Stanford Law professor Michele Dauber, will also be in attendance.
If you’re unable to attend the event, but still want to contribute to the cause of taking down Judge Persky, you can donate here.