Trigger warning: rape, suicide Yesterday, I left the movies, validated and heard. I had just seen a movie that I never even imagined could be told. Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, starring the perfectly cast Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham and Alison Brie, immediately felt important. We find Cassandra (Carey Mulligan) on a quest to teach…
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Forty-five years ago, Title IX legislation, which prevented gender-based discrimination against girls and women in federally-funded educational spheres in the United States, was signed into law by President Richard Nixon. This landmark legislation ensured that women were allowed access to education spaces that may have not been available previously. Title IX is still important in…
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If you live in England, you would undoubtedly have heard of the Channel 4 documentary My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, which explores the lives of gypsy travellers all over Great Britain. The series follows various teenage girls in the weeks and months leading up to a big event in their young lives, whether it’s their…
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**Trigger warning** Discussion of rape and sexual assault Rape myths are harmful. Not only can they seep into a society’s collective cultural consciousness but they can seep into law and policy too. Moreover, instead of holding a rapist to account, myths about rape seek to, in some way, hold a victim of rape to account…
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A new study titled ‘Normalising Sexual Violence: Young Women Account for Harrassment and Abuse’, published in Gender & Society, has found that girls and young women will rarely report incidents of sexual violence because they view them as ‘normal.’ The study analysed interviews conducted by the Children’s Advocacy Center with 100 young women between the…
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**Trigger warning: discussion of rape and rape culture** This just makes me incredibly angry. In an open, anonymous letter to Harvard, a student has shared her story of sexual abuse by a fellow schoolmate that has, at this stage, been ignored by the school itself. The student, who has been diagnosed with depression and has…
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Should we tell women to stop binge drinking in order to protect them from being sexually assaulted? Emily Yoffe, who writes the Dear Prudence column at Slate thinks so, and has attracted the ire of the Internet since having her piece published. Yoffe makes the case that binge drinking is closely related to sexual assault…
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Women have been raped and assaulted during this week’s protests in Tahrir Square — a reality that is in stark contrast to images of women fiercely demonstrating alongside men during the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Egypt’s Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault, a crisis hotline for sexual assault victims, has reported over 100 incidents of sexual violence against…
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The Steubenville rape case of August 2012 was given international attention and exposed many of the darker elements of America’s – and the world’s – reaction to and further creation of rape culture. The well–documented incident involved sixteen-year-old students and budding football stars Ma’lik Richmond and Trent Mays, and the repeated rape and sexual…
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An image originating from China’s version of Twitter of what appears to be a woman wearing hairy leg tights, which are intended to protect women from perverts, hit the internet by storm this week. Described as ‘super sexy, summertime anti-pervert full-leg-of-hair stockings, essential for all young girls going out’, it’s not actually clear whether this…
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Adrian Bayley, the man who raped and murdered Melbourne woman Jill Meagher has today been sentenced to serve at least 35 years in jail. Justice Geoffrey Nettle sentenced the 41-year-old to life for the murder, and 15 years for what he described as ‘a savage violent rape of the worst kind’. Bayley would be eligible…
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The rape and murder of Jill Meagher has shocked the Australian people. Now, as the trial against the accused, Adrian Bayley, unfolds and with sentencing set for today, it has become apparent that not only was Bayley known to police, but he held a significant criminal history. This history includes charges of rape, attempted rape,…
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US Republican Senator John McCain has lost faith in the US armed forces’ ability to respond to the sexual violence perpetrated against women. Senator McCain admitted he can no longer in good conscience advise women to join the service and during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing said, ‘Just last night, a woman came to…
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I am not one for particularly conflated language or hyperbole – but when half the population, of any group of people, is having their life negatively impacted on by an outside entity, which forces its way on or into your person, causing grief, sickness, or even death, that is what we call an epidemic. The…
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