The New Campus Anti Rape Movement

After 40 years of activists working to reduce sexual violence on college campuses, in 2014, the new Campus Anti-Rape Movement (CARM) finally put this issue on the national policy agenda. President Barack Obama credited “an inspiring wave of student-led activism” for catapulting campus rape into public consciousness. This book positions the new CARM within a long history of anti-sexual violence activism in the U.S. The authors describe the major events of this new movement and how it coalesced. The authors also analyze the new CARM through a social movement lens, and examine the role of new laws and social media in facilitating movement successes. The book argues that the new CARM laid the groundwork for the emergence of #MeToo, the highest profile campaign against sexual harassment/violence to date in U.S. history.

Public thinking about sexual assault over the last two decades has changed dramatically for the better. Activists in rape crisis centers can claim a feminist success story, but not always as they would choose. Through her study of six rape crisis centers in Los Angeles, Nancy Matthews shows how the State has influenced rape crisis work by supporting the therapeutic aspects of the anti-rape movement's agenda, and pushing feminist rape crisis centers towards conventional frameworks of social service provision, while ignoring the feminist political agenda of transforming gender relations and preventing rape.

An examination of the history, development, and impact of the feminist anti-rape movement.

DIVDIVSusan Brownmiller’s groundbreaking bestseller uncovers the culture of violence against women with a devastating exploration of the history of rape—now with a new preface by the author exposing the undercurrents of rape still present today/divDIV Rape, as author Susan Brownmiller proves in her startling and important book, is not about sex but about power, fear, and subjugation. For thousands of years, it has been viewed as an acceptable “spoil of war,” used as a weapon by invading armies to crush the will of the conquered. The act of rape against women has long been cloaked in lies and false justifications./divDIV It is ignored, tolerated, even encouraged by governments and military leaders, misunderstood by police and security organizations, freely employed by domineering husbands and lovers, downplayed by medical and legal professionals more inclined to “blame the victim,” and, perhaps most shockingly, accepted in supposedly civilized societies worldwide, including the United States./divDIV Against Our Will is a classic work that has been widely credited with changing prevailing attitudes about violence against women by awakening the public to the true and continuing tragedy of rape around the globe and throughout the ages./divDIV Selected by the New York Times Book Review as an Outstanding Book of the Year and included among the New York Public Library’s Books of the Century, Against Our Will remains an essential work of sociological and historical importance./divDIV/div/div

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online. This book examines the nature, use and scope of online spaces for anti-rape activism, offering a critical commentary on its limitations and potentials.

Public thinking about sexual assault over the last two decades has changed dramatically for the better. Activists in rape crisis centers can claim a feminist success story, but not always as they would choose. Through her study of six rape crisis centers in Los Angeles, Nancy Matthews shows how the State has influenced rape crisis work by supporting the therapeutic aspects of the anti-rape movement's agenda, and pushing feminist rape crisis centers towards conventional frameworks of social service provision, while ignoring the feminist political agenda of transforming gender relations and preventing rape.

The uproar over "legitimate rape" during the 2012 U.S. elections confirms that rape remains a word in flux, subject to political power and social privilege. Redefining Rape describes the forces that have shaped the meaning of sexual violence in the U.S., through the experiences of accusers, assailants, and advocates for change.

This dissertation looks at representations of rape, its aftermath, and rape culture in performance(s) within the campus anti-rape movement in the United States. I analyze three types of performance: protests, performance art, and interactive prevention plays. I argue for the importance of studying such representations, in part, because sexual assault—and the perception of sexual assault—is, and has been, a continuing problem in U.S. culture. Throughout the dissertation my analysis not only considers how and in what ways these representations understand concepts of rape culture but also the current paradigm of rape in which they were created and performed. I draw conclusions about the ways these representations affect the national imaginary about sexual assault, rape culture, victim-survivors, and rapists. As such, this work contributes to the field of rape studies, sociology, and performance studies. By situating this dissertation among and between these fields I demonstrate how a consideration of representations of sexual assault can contribute to our understanding of rape, the sociology of sexual violence, and social movements. The introduction provides a brief overview of the anti-rape movement. I argue for a turn away from the wave metaphor to categorize different periods of the feminist movement in order to better track the dis/continuities within the anti-rape movement since the late 1960s. Chapter one examines campus anti-rape protests as performances. I use a performance studies lens to read the ways these protests represent the movement’s demands for change from university administration, federal policy, and rape culture. The next chapter focuses on performance art by individual artists and artist-survivors as acts to raise awareness as well as process their experiences with sexual assault. The third chapter analyzes interactive prevention plays for the ways they provide undergraduate students with opportunities to develop empathy for victim-survivors, rehearse bystander intervention, and practice verbally negotiating consent. I argue these prevention plays point to a shift in the anti-rape movement from a fear-based rhetoric to a pro-consent discourse

This book examines the role media platforms play in anti-rape and sexual harassment activism in India. Including 75 interviews with feminist activists and journalists working across India, it proposes a framework of agenda-building and establishes a theoretical framework to examine media coverage of issues in the digitally emerging Global South.

Rape law reform has long been hailed as one of the most successful projects of second-wave feminism. Yet forty years after the anti-rape movement emerged, legal and medical institutions continue to resist implementing reforms intended to provide more just and compassionate legal and medical responses to victims of sexual violence. In Up Against a Wall, Rose Corrigan draws on interviews with over 150 local rape care advocates in communities across the United States to explore how and why mainstream systems continue to resist feminist reforms. In a series of richly detailed case studies, the book weaves together scholarship on law and social movements, feminist theory, policy formation and implementation, and criminal justice to show how the innovative legal strategies employed by anti-rape advocates actually undermined some of their central claims. But even as its more radical elements were thwarted, pieces of the rape law reform project were seized upon by conservative policy-makers and used to justify new initiatives that often prioritize the interests and rights of criminal justice actors or medical providers over the needs of victims.