Continuum of Sexual Violence
–forced, coerced, manipulated, or nonconsensual sexual activity
Sexual violence:
forced, coerced, manipulated, or nonconsensual sexual activity
- Sexual violence affects individual women's lives and bodies
- It restricts, inflicts fear, on all women
- It inhibits the liberty and freedom of association of ALL women
- Finally, it affects all men by teaching and reinforcing men's entitlement/male privilege. It encourages men to feel entitled, excused, to touch, grab women; to take advantage, to force women to participate in their (men’s) sexual gratification.
* Rape and its prevalence
* Gains/reform made by feminist movements
* Statistics and reporting un/reliability
* Degree of physical injury
* Stranger rape and how to avoid it
* After an assault - most go unacknowledged
* Fear as oppressive force (male privilege)
Signs of hope and change:
Shout Out ed. by Maria Ochoa & Barbara Ige
Domestic Violence map at NGLTF
Ten Things Men Can Do to Prevent Gender Violence
Domestic violence: Defending Our Lives
* Battering is the major cause of serious injury to women in America, more than auto accidents, muggings and rapes combined.
* About a third of women murdered are killed by husbands, boyfriends, cohabitants, dates, fiances… “This is my wife”
* Most dangerous place: Women are in 9x more danger in their own home than on the street.
* Domestic violence is a family issue - 63%.
* Most dangerous time for women is when they leave.
Women in film:
- Meekah Scott - opening narrator - released on appeal with time served
- Sarah - prof at UT law school
- Patty - Brian, son Timmy - 18-20 yrs for manslaughter (released 2002)
- Shannon - Jose, 8-15 yrs, released on early parole. "I'm grateful to be alive."
- Eugenia - Alfred, MBTA, life for 2nd degree murder (commuted by gov)
- Lisa - Tommy, 15-20 manslaughter, 3.5 yrs in solitary, "but I wasn't afraid anymore." Released on special parole.
Current stats: 40-80% of women convicted of murder acting in self-defense Most women who kill do not have criminal histories.
One third-one of murdered women are killed by male partners; four percent of men are murdered by their partners. The number of men killed by female partners has gone way down over the years, due to public education, domestic violence education and shelters, and economic opportunities for women. Yet the number of women murdered by husband and boyfriends has not decreased significantly.
- 2007 study found domestic violence victims had
- higher conviction rates (78%)
- longer sentences than all others charged with homicide, including those with previous violent criminal records (62%)
- African-American women were convicted at a higher rate (80%) than all others (62%) of all others.
Overall, a white female defendant who killed a white person could expect an average sentence of 10-30 years however, if the woman was a victim of domestic violence her predicted sentence was life.
Marissa Alexander, (Links to an external site.) Florida -- fired two shots into air --husband admitted previously physical abuse, threatening her life, then retracted. --sentenced to twenty years in prison for three charges of aggravated assalt with deadly weapon