Out-of-Body Image: How Media Teaches Young Girls to Hate Their Bodies and Young Boys to Objectify Them (Spring 2008)

A steady diet of exploitative, sexually provocative depictions of women feeds a poisonous trend in women’s and girls’ perceptions of their bodies. A strategy to counter one’s own tendency to self-objectify is to make a point of buying products, watching programs and reading publications that promote more authentic women’s empowerment

Sounding the Alarm on Campus Rape

Bloomberg News took the campus sexual assault backlash to a new low last week with a piece describing how “hook-up culture” is on the decline at elite colleges now that there’s a heightened awareness of sexual assault on campuses. The focus of the article is the “burden” male students carry as a result of new interest in the […]

The Second Wave of Backlash Against Anti-Rape Activism

In the past two years, anti-rape activists have put campus sexual assault on the national policy agenda—but in recent months, the backlash against these efforts has intensified. A band of political conservatives are now openly challenging the existence of the campus rape epidemic and denigrating survivors, including talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham, columnists George […]

A Brief History of Sexual Violence Activism in the U.S.

In the past year, survivor-activists and allies have effectively put sexual violence on the national agenda, spurring White House, congressional, and state-level policy action. Movement leaders have worked tirelessly to make this happen, namely, Wendy Murphy, Alexandra Brodsky, Wagatwe Wanjuki, Annie E. Clark, Laura Dunn, Andrea Pino, S. Daniel Carter, and Dana Bolger. These leaders have created awareness and momentum through hands-on survivor assistance, lobbying, petitions and the creation of new […]