Download or read book Why Rape Culture is a Dangerous Myth written by Luke Gittos and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today it is often said that we live in a 'rape culture'. Panicked headlines tell us that rape is on the increase and that the police are failing to deal with it. Our courts are said to be incapable of delivering justice in rape cases, with the rate of convictions remaining consistently low. Sexism and misogyny in wider society have created a culture in which rape is pervasive, under-reported and often ignored by an uncaring public. But these claims are built on myths and misunderstandings. This book argues that the belief in a 'rape culture' is seriously distorting our discussion of sexual violence. It explains how the laws around rape have expanded significantly in recent decades, giving the state a far greater say in the most intimate areas of our lives. The drive to prosecute more and more people has damaging implications for our legal rights and basic freedoms - and our ability to live intimately with one another. If we are to have a serious discussion about rape, it's time to dispel the dangerous myth of rape culture.

Download or read book Against Our Will written by Susan Brownmiller and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 767 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book Rape Culture Hysteria written by Wendy McElroy and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-06-08 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rape Culture Hysteria: Fixing the Damage Done to Men and Women offers a comprehensive overview and debunking of the "rape culture" myth that has devastated campuses and is spilling into Main Street America. An ideological madness is grotesquely distorting North America's view of sexuality. The book applies sanity to the claims that men are natural rapists and our culture encourages sexual violence. Written by a libertarian feminist and rape survivor, Rape Culture Hysteria opens with a highly personal appeal to depoliticize rape and treat it instead as a crime. Victims need to heal. Politicizing their pain and rage is a callous political maneuver that harms victims, women and men. Chapter One: The Fiction of the Rape Culture defines the "rape culture" and explains why it does not exist in North America. It glances back at how the fiction became embedded into society, especially in academia. Then it looks forward to an emerging rape culture trend that will deeply impact daily life: microaggressions. Chapter Two: Intellectual Framework and Myth History of Rape Culture. The myth did not arise in an intellectual vacuum. In a straight-forward manner, Chapter Two explains the theories upon which the rape culture is based, including social construction, gender, patriarchy, post-Marxism, and social justice. It rejects three of the rape culture's founding beliefs: rape is facilitated by society; men have created a mass psychology of rape; and, rape is a part of normal life. Chapter Three: Dynamics of the Hysteria and Psychology of Rape Culture True Believers. The dynamics of rape culture politics are exposed through the behavior of its social justice warriors. A recent travesty is used to showcase those dynamics. On November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone accused members of a University of Virginia fraternity of gang-raping a female student. The accusation was quickly revealed as untrue. The unraveling at U-Va. is a perfect vehicle to illustrate how rape culture dogma is maintained even when it is revealed to be untrue. The chapter discusses effective tactics with which to handle social justice warriors. Chapter Four: Data, False and True. The rape culture myth is based on untrue and unfounded "facts," which have been repeatedly refuted. Yet they lumber on as zombie stats, kept alive by those to whom the lies are useful and so are repeated like a mantra that drowns out contradicting evidence. This chapter examines of some of the more prevalent zombie stats such as "one in every 4 or 5 women will be raped in their lifetimes." Where did the faux "facts" originate? What evidence, if any, supports them? Which stats better reflect reality? Chapter Five: Comparative Studies and Surveys. This chapter compares and contrasts four of the most important, frequently cited studies and surveys on rape: National Crime Victimization Survey; National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey; Campus Sexual Assault Study; and, Uniform Crime Reporting Program. They are analyzed independently but also compared to each other, including major strengths and weaknesses. Lesser studies are also analyzed in passing. Chapter Six: Harms of the Rape Culture. The gender war must end. Chapter Six offers in-depth analysis of the extreme damage it inflicts on innocent people, with emphasis on the damage done to victims of rape. Victims are a focus because rape culture adherents claim to be their greatest champions; the opposite is true. Chapter Seven: Solutions to Rape Culture Hysteria. Moving Toward Sanity. We can fix this. This is the ultimate message of the book. Undoing the damage is not only possible but also within reach. The solutions offered range from radical suggestions, such as abolishing the Department of Education, to more modest ones, such as recognizing rape as a criminal matter to be handled by police. Defend yourself and your children against rape culture zealots. Demand sanity.

Download or read book Asking for It written by Kate Harding and published by Da Capo Lifelong Books. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first non-academic, single-author book since the 1990s to examine sexual assault as a social phenomenon: noted blogger and author Kate Harding s provocative, sharp and yes, funny book tackling rape culture, also offering some suggestions for moving toward a culture that fully respects and supports victims, while protecting the rights of the accused. "

Download or read book Her Own Hero written by Wendy L Rouse and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The surprising roots of the self-defense movement and the history of women’s empowerment. At the turn of the twentieth century, women famously organized to demand greater social and political freedoms like gaining the right to vote. However, few realize that the Progressive Era also witnessed the birth of the women’s self-defense movement. It is nearly impossible in today’s day and age to imagine a world without the concept of women’s self defense. Some women were inspired to take up boxing and jiu-jitsu for very personal reasons that ranged from protecting themselves from attacks by strangers on the street to rejecting gendered notions about feminine weakness and empowering themselves as their own protectors. Women’s training in self defense was both a reflection of and a response to the broader cultural issues of the time, including the women’s rights movement and the campaign for the vote. Perhaps more importantly, the discussion surrounding women’s self-defense revealed powerful myths about the source of violence against women and opened up conversations about the less visible violence that many women faced in their own homes. Through self-defense training, women debunked patriarchal myths about inherent feminine weakness, creating a new image of women as powerful and self-reliant. Whether or not women consciously pursued self-defense for these reasons, their actions embodied feminist politics. Although their individual motivations may have varied, their collective action echoed through the twentieth century, demanding emancipation from the constrictions that prevented women from exercising their full rights as citizens and human beings. This book is a fascinating and comprehensive introduction to one of the most important women’s issues of all time. This book will provoke good debate and offer distinct responses and solutions.

Download or read book Girlhood written by Melissa Febos and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Critics Circle Award Winner National Bestseller Lambda Literary Award Finalist NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME * NPR * The Washington Post * Kirkus Reviews * Washington Independent Review of Books * The Millions * Electric Literature * Ms Magazine * Entropy Magazine * Largehearted Boy * Passerbuys “Irreverent and original.” –New York Times “Magisterial.” –The New Yorker “An intoxicating writer.” –The Atlantic “A classic!” –Mary Karr “A true light in the dark.” –Stephanie Danler “An essential, heartbreaking project.” –Carmen Maria Machado A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become. A wise and brilliant guide to transforming the self and our society. In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them. When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she'd been told about herself and the habits and defenses she'd developed over years of trying to meet others' expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs. Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny. Written with Febos' characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.

Download or read book The Trauma Myth written by Susan Clancy and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2011-07-05 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A controversial new theory about child sexual abuse and its treatment

Download or read book The Purity Myth written by Jessica Valenti and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is obsessed with virginity - from the media to schools to government agencies. This panic is ensuring that young women's ability to be moral agents is absolutely dependent on their sexuality. Jessica Valenti, executive editor of Feministing.com and author of Full Frontal Feminism and Yes Means Yes, addresses this poignant issue in her latest book, The Purity Myth. Valenti argues that the country's intense focus on chastity is extremely damaging to young women. Through in depth analysis of cultural stereotypes and media messages, Valenti reveals that powerful messages - ranging from abstinence curriculum to ''Girls Gone Wild'' commercials - place a young woman's worth entirely on her sexuality. Morals are therefore linked purely to sexual behavior, as opposed to values like honesty, kindness, and altruism. Valenti approaches the topic head-on, shedding light on chastity in a historical context, abstinence-only education, pornography, and public punishments for those who dare to have sex, among other critical issues. She also offers solutions that pave the way for a future without a damaging emphasis on virginity, including a call to rethink male sexuality and reframing the idea of ''losing it.'' With Valenti's usual balance of intelligence and wit, The Purity Myth presents a powerful and revolutionary argument that girls and women, even in this day and age, are overly valued for their sexuality, and that this needs to stop.

Download or read book Human Rights Illusory Freedom written by Luke Gittos and published by Zero Books. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A progressive argument for repealing the Human Rights Act. Contrary to contemporary panic around human rights repeal, Human Rights - Illusory Freedom puts a progressive case against the Human Rights Act. It describes how human rights arose as a new language for western governments following the collapse in their collective authority in the aftermath of World War 2 and shows how the UK Human Rights Act has presided over a catastrophic loss of freedom, which continued a process which began with the Tory party in the 1970s. Human Rights - Illusory Freedom makes a positive case for restoring control over our traditional freedoms to the electorate and away from unaccountable Judges in the UK Courts and the European Court of Human Rights.

Download or read book Hunting Girls written by Kelly Oliver and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games), Bella Swan (Twilight), Tris Prior (Divergent), and other strong and resourceful characters have decimated the fairytale archetype of the helpless girl waiting to be rescued. Giving as good as they get, these young women access reserves of aggression to liberate themselves—but who truly benefits? By meeting violence with violence, are women turning victimization into entertainment? Are they playing out old fantasies, institutionalizing their abuse? In Hunting Girls, Kelly Oliver examines popular culture's fixation on representing young women as predators and prey and the implication that violence—especially sexual violence—is an inevitable, perhaps even celebrated, part of a woman's maturity. In such films as Kick-Ass (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and Maleficent (2014), power, control, and danger drive the story, but traditional relationships of care bind the narrative, and even the protagonist's love interest adds to her suffering. To underscore the threat of these depictions, Oliver locates their manifestation of violent sex in the growing prevalence of campus rape, the valorization of woman's lack of consent, and the new urgency to implement affirmative consent apps and policies.

Download or read book American Hookup The New Culture of Sex on Campus written by Lisa Wade and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A must-read for any student—present or former—stuck in hookup culture’s pressure to put out." —Ana Valens, Bitch Offering invaluable insights for students, parents, and educators, Lisa Wade analyzes the mixed messages of hookup culture on today’s college campuses within the history of sexuality, the evolution of higher education, and the unfinished feminist revolution. She draws on broad, original, insightful research to explore a challenging emotional landscape, full of opportunities for self-definition but also the risks of isolation, unequal pleasure, competition for status, and sexual violence. Accessible and open-minded, compassionate and honest, American Hookup explains where we are and how we got here, asking, “Where do we go from here?”

Download or read book Transforming a Rape Culture written by Emilie Buchwald and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a diverse group of opinions that lay the foundation for change in basic attitudes about power, gender, race, and sexuality -- for a future without sexual violence. The contributors to this sourcebook share the conviction that rape is epidemic because our society encourages male aggression and tacitly or overtly supports violence against women. Cumulatively, these 34 essays by such figures as Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin, Ntozake Shange, Michael Kimmel and Louise Erdrich situate rape on a continuum extending from sexist language to pornography, sexual harassment in schools and the workplace, wife battering and date and marital rape. Highlights include a proposal to make rape a presidential election issue, an analysis of the churches' ambivalent response to societal violence, guidelines for raising boys to view themselves as nurturing, nonviolent fathers and inspirational visions of personal or institutional change.

Download or read book Wake Siren written by Nina MacLaughlin and published by FSG Originals. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In fierce, textured voices, the women of Ovid's Metamorphoses claim their stories and challenge the power of myth I am the home of this story. After thousands of years of other people’s tellings, of all these different bridges, of words gotten wrong, I’ll tell it myself. Seductresses and she-monsters, nymphs and demi-goddesses, populate the famous myths of Ovid's Metamorphoses. But what happens when the story of the chase comes in the voice of the woman fleeing her rape? When the beloved coolly returns the seducer's gaze? When tales of monstrous transfiguration are sung by those transformed? In voices both mythic and modern, Wake, Siren revisits each account of love, loss, rape, revenge, and change. It lays bare the violence that undergirds and lurks in the heart of Ovid’s narratives, stories that helped build and perpetuate the distorted portrayal of women across centuries of art and literature. Drawing on the rhythms of epic poetry and alt rock, of everyday speech and folk song, of fireside whisperings and therapy sessions, Nina MacLaughlin, the acclaimed author of Hammer Head, recovers what is lost when the stories of women are told and translated by men. She breathes new life into these fraught and well-loved myths.

Download or read book The Way We Never Were written by Stephanie Coontz and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive edition of the classic, myth-shattering history of the American family Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man's home has never been his castle, the "male breadwinner marriage" is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. In The Way We Never Were, acclaimed historian Stephanie Coontz examines two centuries of the American family, sweeping away misconceptions about the past that cloud current debates about domestic life. The 1950s do not present a workable model of how to conduct our personal lives today, Coontz argues, and neither does any other era from our cultural past. This revised edition includes a new introduction and epilogue, exploring how the clash between growing gender equality and rising economic inequality is reshaping family life, marriage, and male-female relationships in our modern era. More relevant than ever, The Way We Never Were is a potent corrective to dangerous nostalgia for an American tradition that never really existed.

Download or read book On Rape written by Germaine Greer and published by Hachette Australia. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's time to rethink rape. Centuries of different approaches to rape - as inflicted by men on women - have got us nowhere. Rape statistics remain intractable: one woman in five will experience sexual violence. Very few rapes find their way into court. The crucial issue is consent, thought by some to be easy to establish and by others impossible. Sexual assault does not diminish; relations between the sexes do not improve; litigation balloons. In ON RAPE Germaine Greer argues there has to be a better way.

Download or read book Daphne A Novel written by Will Boast and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this “elegant meditation on modern-day emotion” (San Francisco Chronicle), best-selling, prize-winning author Will Boast reimagines the myth of Daphne and Apollo. Will Boast’s long-anticipated first novel is an “outright marvelous debut [that] breathes fresh vigor into timeless questions of love and risk” (Laura van den Berg). Born with a rare condition in which she suffers degrees of paralysis when faced with intense emotion, Daphne has had few close friends and fewer lovers. Like her mythic namesake, one touch can freeze her. But when Daphne meets shy, charming Ollie, her well-honed defenses falter, and she’s faced with a critical choice: cling to her protective isolation or risk the recklessness of real intimacy. Set against the backdrop of a San Francisco flush with money and pulsing with protest, Daphne is “an amiable exploration of how humans might come to manage their raucous hearts” (NewYorker.com).

Download or read book Faking Normal written by Courtney C. Stevens and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An edgy, realistic debut novel praised by the New York Times bestselling author of Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys, as “a beautiful reminder that amid our broken pieces we can truly find ourselves.” Alexi Littrell hasn’t told anyone what happened to her over the summer by her backyard pool. Instead, she hides in her closet, counts the slats in the air vent, and compulsively scratches the back of her neck, trying to make the outside hurt more than the inside does—and deal with the trauma. When Bodee Lennox—“the Kool-Aid Kid”—moves in with the Littrells after a family tragedy, Alexi discovers an unlikely friend in this quiet, awkward boy who has secrets of his own. As their friendship grows, Alexi gives him the strength to deal with his past, and Bodee helps her summon the courage to find her voice and speak up about the rape that has changed the course of her life.