Art, Activism, and Sexual Violence

Highlights the role of creative expression in exposing, preventing, and combatting sexual violence

Since 2017 the #MeToo movement has expanded cultural awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual assault and tacit support for rape culture in the United States and beyond. Despite its ubiquity, sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes in the world in part because of the mistreatment and misunderstanding survivors often face from their communities and the legal system.

Art, Activism, and Sexual Violence brings together creative work, in multiple genres, with analyses of the historical and cultural contexts of sexual violence from intersectional feminist perspectives. Together, contributors illuminate the power of artists--as victims, survivors, and allies--to combat sexual violence through creative expression in partnership with historians, anthropologists, sociologists, journalists, and gender scholars. Showcasing dance, textile arts, painting, new media images, drama, and other creative forms, this volume embraces artistic expression's transformative potential and inspires readers to action, mutual recognition, resistance, and resilience.

Sally L. Kitch is University and Regents Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Arizona State University. Her many books include Contested Terrain: Reflections with Afghan Women Leaders and The Specter of Sex: Gendered Foundations of Racial Formation in the United States. Dawn R. Gilpin is assistant dean and associate professor at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where her research focuses on mediated social systems. She is coauthor of Crisis Management in a Complex World.